Watching baby-boomers learn how to exercise military power...

Is a painful thing.

Yesterday's WSJ editorial:

'[Joe Biden] was recently quoted by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter as saying that "in July 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out [of Afghanistan], bet on it." Defense Secretary Robert Gates flatly contradicted the Veep on Fox News Sunday, insisting "that absolutely has not been decided," and that the July 2011 date was only a "starting point" for withdrawal, contingent on local conditions.

'The President ought to put this debate to rest, rather than trying to appease his liberal base by promising withdrawal while winking and nodding to our partners in Afghanistan that the deadline is effectively meaningless.

'So far, his ambiguity has fueled the very infighting that led to General McChrystal's dismissal, persuaded our NATO partners to prepare their own exit strategies, and convinced Afghan President Hamid Karzai that he can't count on America's long-term support. The damage isn't merely the deadline but the sense projected by Mr. Biden that the U.S. will leave the Afghans in the lurch again, much as we did at the end of the Cold War.'


As painful as this is to watch, especially if you are assigned to a combat unit, if Americans left of center do not learn how to own a war and defend national interests, we will be stuck for another generation in the 1974 conditions of most of my lifetime. The baby-boomers' children are going to have to know how to fight.