Because the political mission is totally different, and I would apply this to the analogy of the British in Afghanistan in the 19th century that's being used quite often by the opponents of this war. We're not there to conquer Afghanistan. We're not there to impose our political will on the people of Afghanistan. That's what the Soviet Union was doing there. It was backing a puppet government that it established through a coup, and it was sending its troops to do that. We are not doing that.
The government in Afghanistan was duly elected after an entire constitutional process, and that government needs and has asked for our help. That government controls a national military and a national police—not as large nor as well trained as we would hope, but it does control them. That government exercises sovereignty over most of Afghanistan; that government wants us to be there; and that government is asking us to help it fight an insurgency. This is a completely different case than the situation we had during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.