Leaks Make It Clear: We Still Don't Have a Clue

Robert Gibbs may be correct in asserting that the WikiLeaks trove unearthed nothing fundamentally new, writes Maureen Dowd, but "it reflected one chilling fact: the Taliban has been getting better and better every year of the insurgency. So why will 30,000 more troops help?" We seem to be great at inspiring the rise of insurgencies, just not so great at establishing standing armies to fight them.

"We invaded two countries, and allied with a third—all renowned as masters at double-dealing," Dowd writes at the New York Times. "And, now lured into their mazes, we still don’t have the foggiest idea, shrouded in the fog of wars, how these cultures work." Our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been been "positively Sisyphean." " (More WikiLeaks stories.)