U.S. media do not care if a pundit they publish has been wrong in his or her earlier predictions. They allow such dimwits and deniers of reality to repeat their errors over and over and over again. A condition though is some connection of said pundit to a "reputable" organization or think tank with big money behind it.
Consider one Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute on Afghanistan. In January 2014 we wrote Hopeless For O'Hanlon:
A casual and incomplete search for "O'Hanlon" "Hope" "Afghanistan" finds the following entries:
TwinCities.com, November 17 2009: Michael O'Hanlon: A blue line of hope in Afghanistan
LA Times, December 27 2009: A year of war — and progress
The question is whether it will be too little too late, but there is reason for hope.
Washington Post, June 26 2010: Reasons to be hopeful about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan
Politico, September 28 2010: New reasons for hope in Afghanistan
NYT, May 20 2011: Finally, a Fighting Force
But there is reason to be hopeful. …
CNN, March 16 2012: O'Hanlon: 7 reasons for hope in Afghanistan
Here are some highlights of the more hopeful indicators in Afghanistan: …
CNN, May 2 2012: O'Hanlon: Reasons for hope on Afghanistan
Washington Times, June 1 2012: O’HANLON: Rays of hope in Afghanistan
Several hopeful things I saw on a recent trip …
Politico, March 21 2013: Kandahar and hope
Now, Kandahar gives hope to the war effort. …
Michael Cohan now extended the list on Twitter with some new hopeless-like O'Hanlon entries.
In Politico September 5 2013:
.. overall coalition troop strength has hardly declined, because as Americans have stood down, Afghans have stood up.
..
…while war is always a horrible business, make no mistake about it, this year’s campaign in Afghanistan is reasonably encouraging so far.
On January 2 2014 in the Washington Post:
U.S. intelligence is too pessimistic about Afghanistan
The case for hopefulness on Afghanistan is built largely on what were probably its three most notable developments of 2013 ..
…
There is still a powerful case for interpreting the facts in a hopeful vein.
Mach 23 2014 in Politico:
Afghanistan Is Doing Better Than You Think
But the overall military picture is fairly good. … Afghanistan is doing far better than most critics imagine.
..
Most major cities, never as violent as many urban areas in Latin America or Africa even at the worst of the war, have improved further
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Afghan security forces are doing better than almost anyone expected. …This war may not be won in a classic sense, but it is also surely not being lost.
On February 4 2015 in the Wall Street Journal:
How Not to Squander Hard-Won Gains in Afghanistan
The woes are well-known, the strengths too often forgotten. Major cities and roads, for example, are increasingly safe. ..
O'Hanlon in the Washington Post on July 7 2015:
The U.S. needs to keep troops in Afghanistan
Beyond our own global counterterrorism exigencies, Afghanistan itself still needs help. The situation there is not hopeless, but it is serious.
…
But all is not lost. Far from it.
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The right approach for the United States is not to pull out next year but to keep several bases and several thousand U.S. and other NATO-coalition troops in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.
In Politico two days ago, December 22 2015:
The situation in Afghanistan is far from hopeless. For each negative trend, there is an important counterargument.
…
The deterioration has been significant, to be sure, but far from apocalyptic.
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Postpone the reduction to 5,500 U.S. troops, which will almost certainly be premature. Indeed, we might better expand to 12,000 or so for a couple years
The war in Afghanistan was lost shortly after the Taliban were driven out. Afghanistan was ready to be left alone again to find its own way towards a new balance. Instead the U.S. decided to occupy the place and to hunt down, torture and kill any random "Taliban". Western money fueled an orgy of graft and corruption. With support from within an alienated population the real Taliban came back. Like some 20 years ago, they are wining the war against the occupiers and their proxies and there is nothing the "west" can do about it.
Meanwhile al- Qaeda has multiplied outside of Afghanistan. The theory that such a terror organization needs a secure retreat is wrong. If tomorrow Afghanistan were secured and free of any strife al-Qaeda an similar groups would still be able to exist and flourish there or elsewhere.
But such sane thought is not allowed in mainstream media. Too much moneyed interest is fed by waging war.
That is why hopelessly delusional idiots like O'Hanlon still get published.