Just because we call it a "just" war...

doesn't affect the running score. Everybody can see the scoreboard from where they're sitting, right?

Tom Blackburn sums up our military strategy, which really is just a game of kicking the can down the road a piece:

Finally, someone is being realistic about Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai said it would be 15 to 20 years before his country can afford to pay for its own defense. He is in a position to know — or to make it take that long.

Self-defense in 2024 is a long way from U.S withdrawal in July, 2011. The July date is the one President Obama used in his West Point speech. It melted like the glaciers when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to explain it. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, current Republican choice for Grand Pooh-bah, said it isn't important. Mr. Obama used it again in Oslo, but what does he know?

An array of generals and diplomats testified in Washington last week that there is far-off light at the end of the tunnel. They covered everything but the two lacks that make most of what they said impossible. Even a just war can't be fought without troops and money.
...
As I understand the Republicans, we can't afford to pay for unemployment insurance, health care reform or new sources of energy. But some of them seem to think we can afford a war. They may want to pay for it by privatizing Social Security.

The Democrats are even more unrealistic. Taxes? Our current wartime president is as unlikely to offend people by mentioning the unspeakable than was our previous wartime president.

While we were shopping, fulfilling ourselves with Oprah, asserting ourselves with NASCAR logos on our Hondas and voting for tax cuts, we collectively stripped the country of the discipline, self-sacrifice, intelligence and financial resources it takes to run an empire.

All we have is imperial dreams. Generals seek more translators in Afghanistan. They speak 30 languages there; they can't even talk to each other. Translate that.