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This was the season that Americans remembered Afghanistan. Suddenly, the war America thought it had won became the war America was about to lose. Prompted by warnings from his top commander in Afghanistan,President Obama began asking fundamental questions about the costs, the goals, the very strategy of the engagement. By fall, as public support was eroding, he tried to answer his own questions, pledging to send 30,000 more troops immediately and to start bringing them home in 18 months. But long wars are tricky business for democracies. By the spring, America's post-9/11 wars will have lasted longer than the eight and a half years between the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that formally started and the Paris peace accord that effectively ended American military involvement in Vietnam. The president rejects the analogy, but liberals in Congress have grown restive, worrying that the $30 billion projected annual cost of the Afghan surge will eviscerate domestic programs. More troubling to many is the toll on the nearly two million troops who have cycled through Iraq or Afghanistan at some point over the last eight years, many several times. Army suicides this year broke last year's record, and divorces are up again. As winter arrived, Americans seemed ready to consign Iraq to gauzy memory, but Afghanistan loomed a foreboding tunnel with no clear end in sight. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Criticizes the defense of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice towards U.S. President George W. Bush regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Invasion of Iraq; Rationale for the Iraq war; Assessment of the couterterrorism strategy.

Discusses the heightened border security at the Mexican and Canadian borders with the United States with the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Traffic bottlenecks at borders in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; Surprise at the efficiency and lack of delays despite war in Iraq; Importance of the trained staff and extensive preparations.