I’m sorry for the scatterbrained post title, but there are several things we need to cover.

First, note what Lara Logan says about Afghanistan (and the more sweeping issue of the state of Islamists in Asia and Africa).

Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.

“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.

The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.

“There is this narrative coming out of Washington for the last two years,” Logan said. It is driven in part by “Taliban apologists,” who claim “they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban,” she added sarcastically. “It’s such nonsense!”

[ … ]

Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us.

It must come as a shock to hear a main stream reporter say these things to the Obama administration.  I’m sure those in attendance were shocked.  Lara Logan (reporting on Afghanistan) and Sharyl Attkisson (on Fast and Furious) working for CBS have done good work (although David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh were the sources for Sharyl’s work and haven’t received enough credit for it).  Jake Tapper with ABC is also a very good reporter, but there aren’t many in the MSM that have earned the respect they demand.

But I have a problem with Lara’s account.  She says, “Our enemies are writing the story,” as if the Taliban are some sort of honorable warriors who have outwitted the U.S. with all of its heralded might.

No, we have abandoned the battle space.  The Taliban are a bunch of ignorant child molesting abusers and seventh century vandals and ne’er-do-wells.  Our loss is our fault and we beat ourselves, and as long as Lara’s prose is interpreted that way, she has added to the conversation.

But of course, readers of The Captain’s Journal didn’t have to wait on Lara to give us this information.  I have been singing this song for five or more years now, calling Generals McChrystal, Rodriguez and others on the carpet for their failures and propaganda (recall where I called out Rodriguez and his stupid claim that the Taliban weren’t able to launch a spring offensive in 2008).

Speaking of things that my readers already know, it’s almost amusing to see how the administration and their detractors have done this kabuki dance over who knew what when on the Benghazi attacks.  This was all totally unnecessary and so much wasted time.

All one must do to figure out what happened is visit this web site and study the educated comments posted in reply to the articles.  For example, study the comments from Dirty Mick and Jean from one month ago (right after the attack happened) and you will learn about a complex ambush, the use of combined arms, no real QRF, enemy fighters already in position, etc.  We knew then that this was a preplanned attack whether they admitted it or not.  The only thing that wasn’t clear at this point was that the existing security team included contract employees (former SEALs), and that more security had been requested.

Again, you know it from reading it here almost as soon as the smoke clears.  You don’t have to wait on the spin.