And now this kind of war

"...only those who will admit defeat can be defeated. ... Or, conversely, when the populace admits defeat, the forces in the field might just as well surrender or withdraw."

Ancient history, that. Hardly news by any definition.

General Dave Petraeus, London, September 17:

The challenges in Afghanistan clearly are significant. But the stakes are high. And, while the situation unquestionably is, as General McChrystal has observed, serious, the mission is, as he has affirmed, still doable. In truth, it is, I think, accurate to observe that, as in Iraq in 2007, everything in Afghanistan is hard, and it is hard all the time.

I'd tell you to read the whole thing, but I believe you long ago determined whether or not this man's words were worth a read.

Perhaps this voice is less familiar:

The new head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, also warned last night that Nato had yet to find the right formula for success in Afghanistan. General Richards also warned that defeat for the international coalition would have an "intoxicating impact" on extremists around the world. Failure for an alliance as powerful as the Nato presence in Afghanistan would convice terrorists that "anything might be possible".

The two generals were speaking after a soul-searching summer marked by a rising number of casualties. Since 2001 Britain's death toll has reached 216 and America's 830. But both men insist that the mission is achievable.

I was in Iraq in 2007, so I had first-hand knowledge of the difference between reality there and its perception at home - and how close that came to bringing about an end that would have had consequences for our efforts in Afghanistan, that would have tipped the scales towards hopeless there, too. After all, we weren't the only ones who would have turned our attention to just one battlefield - but we would have been the only ones to demonstrate (yet again) how easy it is to quit. Sadly, conflicts continue until both sides do.

I seem to recall efforts at home to declare failure back in 2007 - back when the fighting and dying were at their worst - and to ensure the blame for that failure didn't rest with the troops but was passed on to the Generals who had sacrificed their soldiers' lives on the altar of appeasement to their civilian masters. Some might recall "Betrayus" - a disgusting trope that made its way from certain web sites (more concerned with winning elections than battles with guns) to the pages of the New York Times - at a discount.

You need no reminder of that, I am sure. Of days when scant available facts (and abundant fallacies) in initial reports were augmented with the assumptions of those who were most likely to be wrong, whose motives and commitment would require them to ignore or dismiss follow-on reports from on-scene (from those whose every word had mere days before been unimpeachable Gospel truth) and moveon to the next preliminary report, the new outrage of the day.

Those were grim days on the battlefield. The initial results from changes in our tactics and an increase in troops were predictable enough: more violence and death. Equally predictable were efforts by those near and far who would use that for their own gain. Less foreseeable were the medium- to long-range results - which anyone opposed to how we got there could insist were pointless or more easily achieved in other ways regardless... and so on.

Enough of that. We've learned those lessons, and those days are gone. What we have inarguably reached is a long awaited point where we can focus more on Afghanistan. As we take that which worked in Iraq and adapt it to that very different land so near it (where we've other lessons learned) we are much more interested in stories like these:

When I got up to leave, Shakar Khan gripped my hand and held it. My friend, he said. Do not go. Behind a trim black beard, his sun-beaten face crinkled into a broad smile. He cast an eye around the room, as if to find something to tempt me to stay. The shabby, one-room police office held a bed, a few cushions on the concrete floor, and two battered cooking pots. Outside, several of his men, Afghan National Police, bantered with American infantrymen, talking about joint training they'd be doing in the coming week.

It is the why are we there, what are we doing, and what if we didn't sort of report - the answer to questions others insist are unanswered, the answers still others will insist are not good enough.

Because the answers to hard questions are hard, and hard all the time.

Perhaps it's something new but like so many things these days it all seems hauntingly familiar (and predictable) to me.

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