Obama has been criticised for not using the word "victory" in his speech on Afghanistan. Here's why:
Mr. Gates and others talked about the limits of the American ability to actually defeat the Taliban; they were an indigenous force in Afghan society, part of the political fabric. This was a view shared by others around the table, including Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., who argued that the Taliban could not be defeated as such and so the goal should be to drive wedges between those who could be reconciled with the Afghan government and those who could not be.
Those who expressed disappointment that the president failed to use Bush-like rhetoric have failed to grasp the nature of this war, and have forgotten how hollow such stuff can rapidly come to sound.
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