[Itse]

Bad things happen in a war, but it does matter how often and what kind.

As things are, the anecdotal evidence of foreign troops doing what their not supposed to (as noted in the documents at hand) keeps mounting up, while the evidence of lasting achievements stays small.

Yes, that's a fair comparison, because casualties of war are also permanent. If there are no longterm benefits, then the casualties are without justification.

(EDIT: Note that I'm not saying that longterm benefits could not appear later on, in which case a debate about justification could be started. What I'm saying is that as long as there is no evidence that the goals will or can be reached, there is no point in arguing about whether or not the goals are worth the damage. The war being so long, the argument of "it will all be worth it in the end" is already weak and keeps getting weaker every day. Basicly, the more the casualties pile up, the bigger the reward should be. At some point you have to accept that it's impossible to achieve a goal that's significant enough. Personally I think that time was years ago...)

As the most basic example of a longterm goal that's not coming any closer, casualties to foreign troops keep going up, and thus there is no real evidence of the Taleban getting weaker, which should be one of the primary goals.

It doesn't matter how many enemies are killed, if it doesn't weaken their ability to strike back.

Afghanistan is already the longest war in US history, yet they haven't even figured out a way to know who the enemy is. They keep losing more and more troops. It's obvious the foreign troops will lose this war, and it's sad that some continue to argue for it.

You have to keep in mind; most arguments against stopping the war could have been made about Vietnam in 1975. I'm guessing most agree it's a good thing those arguments didn't win.