Kabul Assaulted: The Taliban's Tet Offensive?

Given the saturation of Haiti coverage and the whirlwind of excitement around Scott Brown, this disturbing development in Kabul has gone largely unnoticed. According to The New York Times, a well coordinated multi-faceted assault by Taliban suicide bombers and soldiers came very close to penetrating key Afghan governmental buildings. Green Aghan soliders, with limited support from a contingent of New Zealanders, were able to repel the attack and restore order. However, perception is everything and it must be very disturbing to have terrorist insurgents waging war in the streets of that fledgling nation's capital. The Times is clearly pushing the point of view that the Taliban is resurgent, however, the werewolf wonders if the opposite isn't true on some levels.

Sometimes spectacular attacks, such as these, are the throws of desperation, trying to mask weakness by marshaling every resource in a show of false force. It smells of classic slight of hand strategy and deception 101. Is this the time for the President to double down and go after the Taliban with everything we have? It was pathetic that the President played petty politics with Afghanistan by authorizing only a partial release of the troops requested by General McChrystal after months of of empty debate(Better something than nothing, but still). Yet, he releases 10,000 troops to Haiti in a heartbeat. We need to shit or get of the pot when it comes to deciding if we are serious about helping the Afghan government we installed and eradicating the Taliban. The werewolf firmly believes it is high-time to double down on some horse laxatives and to purge our bowels in an explosive fashion with the Taliban on the receiving end. Nothing would shame the werewolf more than America abandoning our allies and replaying the failure of Vietnam.

Although the werewolf was still more than a decade away from even being conceived, this reminds him of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Despite suffering substantial tactical defeats and the severe loss of manpower and leadership, the Viet Cong(the bad guys in the Vietnam War) were able to spin their failed assault into a huge PR victory, breathing new life into their almost lost cause. Idiots like Walter Cronkite, failed to read between the lines, and saw the Tet Offensive as symbolic victory, doing the VC's dirty work and laying the ground work for American failure. The werewolf just hopes that Vietnam doesn't repeat itself, with the Americans and their allies winning the tactical and military conflict, only to lose the PR and strategy conflict. He hopes people keep history in mind when they read these stories. So much is at stake.