PELSTER: It is time for the country to man up

Yesterday was Veterans Day.

It is a day when we all remember the real heroes in our country. I think of my grandpa. I think of my high school history teacher.

I think of Shane Harris, Christopher Best and David "Doc" Sotelo. Rest in peace, brothers. You are missed.

It was a day to look back at our history, to remember that we exist in this protected safety bubble we call America: something that can only be fully understood by those who have lived without it, because of those who fought to build it and defend it.

But now, as we move on to the day after, it is time to consider what comes next. Thousands of your peers, every year, become inducted into the ever-expanding ranks of United States "war veterans."

To do that, time must be taken to remember those fighting against us on the other side of the world, and who are apparently winning.

It is amazing to think that a small number of sandal-wearing fighters with stolen rockets, cell phones and garage door openers are blowing up tanks, running out the U.N. and pushing the coalition away from rural areas and into the cities. They are an intelligent, calculating, unbelievably resourceful and dangerous enemy that understands they have the momentum.

As England's Army Chief, Sir David Richards, stated on Sunday:

"The Taliban are saying ‘the elephant is down, all we need to do is kill it.' This is one big psychological operation. If we don't do more now… then we risk losing."

The winner is not the side with the most kills at the end of the day. It is a war of wills, the loser will be the first side that breaks, and the cost of failure for us would be staggering.

The Taliban, funded by groups like al-Qaida and profiting from their heroin business, would sweep up the country and re-establish their government. Al-Qaida would rebuild and refund itself, all while learning from the mistakes of their past, into an organization even more dangerous than before. Pakistan would destabilize, and their government would risk finally losing complete control of the country, and, most importantly, their nuclear weapons.

Arguments for withdrawal have been made with the belief that the Taliban is not our enemy, and that al-Qaida can be contained with flying drones and an increase in the spying budget.

They still want to treat terrorism as a crime and not a new evolution of war. It is instead a complex form of guerrilla warfare that can be fought head on with AK-47s, or with IEDs, suicide vests, commercial airliners or a pistol on a US military base. It is terrorism as a form of war. The two can no longer be separated.

Imagine playing chess while the other side is playing checkers, and then the board reverses every few turns, and taking one piece could only mean the other side gets two more. It is a confusing, disorientating, and nearly impossible war to win.

However, it is a one that can be won, if we match the other side's most powerful asset. Patience.

In Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on the United States in 1996, he said, referring to those we are fighting now, "These youths love death as you love life."

They have generations to fight this war. There are no timetables or earmarks to satisfy before giving up. No matter the cost, victory is their only option. Just look at the Taliban, which was shredded in 2001. Nothing remained except for people hiding in Pakistan or in the mountains. Yet they slowly rebuilt into the resurgence we see today. To match their patience and determination is the only way to win.

Quotations like this from a member of the Taliban interviewed a couple months ago for Newsweek, talking about how they began to retake parts of his country, reaffirm the importance of the war:

"We began capturing, judging, and beheading some of those Afghans who worked with the Americans and (Afghan President) Karzai. Terrorized, their families and relatives left the villages and moved to the towns. Our control was slowly being restored."