War in Afghanistan requires a tourniquet

The Chicago Tribune, 12/23/08, Section 1, Page 6. Title: "Obama staff briefed on war plan".
The beginning of paragraph 4 reads: "Right now there is a sense you need to apply a tourniquet of some kind. Said a senior defense official"

This is reference to the war in Afghanistan. The article goes on to point out how this has been a record year for our troop losses in Afghanistan. Applying a tourniquet to a wound would slow the bleeding down to a level where the person could survive. For me, this implies that our losses are unsustainable. And that the best course of action is to slow down the war thereby slowing down the bleeding. What this article demonstrates to me is a 2nd grade level understanding of the war.
1) If you added up all of the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan plus the wounded, you would arrive at a figure of troop losses that the U.S. has lost in just a few days in wars in the past. While I do not like to lose ANY soldier, our losses today are those of a low level, minor war at best.

2) We need to slow down, if not stop the bleeding? This is NOT how wars are won. We will win by accepting that our enemy is stronger and will now talk to us on our terms? No, we will be talking to them on their terms. This is how wars are lost.

The quotes I took from this article are only part of the picture. Please read the article as I am analyzing the big picture that is being attempted to be painted.

On a side note: President-elect Obama must not believe this either. He is talking about sending additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan. This is escalating the war, not slowing it down.