We Forget Afghanistan At Our Own Peril
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, War
The top commander of NATO forces says Afghanistan is dangerously close to abandoning democracy and supporting Taliban militants.
My god, how did we get to this point?
Gen. David Richards, a British officer who commands NATO’s 32,000 troops here, warned in an interview with The Associated Press that if life doesn’t get better over the winter, most Afghans could switch sides.“They will say, ‘We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting,’” Richards said.
I’ll tell you how we got to this point: Neglect. Arrogance. Politics.
Here’s more reality from on the ground…
Afghanistan is going through its worst bout of violence since the U.S.-led invasion removed the former Taliban regime from power five years ago. The Taliban has made a comeback in the south and east of the country and is seriously threatening Western attempts to stabilize the country after almost three decades of war.
Lump this information with Pakistan’s surrender of Warzistan to the Taliban and I keep just shaking my head with each story that comes down the pike. Just when I think it can’t get any worse, there’s a military guy or a Senator saying, “Umm, yeah…thing aren’t so hot over here…”
Are we serious about fighting the WoT? Honestly, are we? Or is just now another nice slogan featured on one of any of the assorted, multi-colored, ribbon-shaped magnets I see on SUVs buzzing here and there? Freedom isn’t free. These colors don’t run. Support our troops.
There is no reason, absolutely ZERO, why this should be happening in Afghanistan right now. But you don’t see any of the conservative talking heads criticizing Bush and company for cutting and running from that country, even though it’s been going sideways for a couple years now and still houses the guy who ORDERED 9/11.
People, we deserve better than this continued operational incompetence. How we didn’t plan for this, how we didn’t anticipate this, it’s insanity.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 8th, 2006 and is filed under Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 8th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
You are the very definition of an armchair general. This isn’t a game of Risk were once we get a peice of our infantry on a country – it is a pacified, democratic suburb on Sacramento. We took a country away from an Islamic tribe of goat-poking mountain people with lots of experience with AK-47s.
If things are in such peril and we are so close to losing the heart and minds of average Afgan, I guess it is a good thing we didn’t drop a bomb on their funeral. Such cultural courtesies tend to go a aways when your winning hearts and minds.
October 9th, 2006 at 12:17 am
OTOH, DosPeros, if Bush had kept his promises to the Afghans instead of switching focus to Iraq so soon it might not be like this.
October 9th, 2006 at 7:47 am
Hehe…you do remember that you’re on a blog, right?
The thing is, I was saying this a few years ago when we were pulling out of the country. In fact, a lot of Dems were. That’s why we questioned going into Iraq because we hadn’t a) nabbed Osama or b) fully secured the Afghanistan. But, you know, we were unpatriotic and didn’t support the troops…
And let me also say that this administration has a very backwards view of what “securing a country” means. I think they were truly so naive to think that if you can get people to the ballot boxes, if you can get women to vote in an Islamic society, you’ve won. Well, that’s obviously not the case, and no amount of purple fingers can change the fact that we took our eye off the ball and we are paying the consequences in both credibility and lives.
DP, come on man, would you wake up already? Aren’t you getting tired of defending these guys? Listen, if they were busting their asses and coming up with new ideas to fix their broken policies, I could understand why you’d be defending them. But they aren’t. Also, aren’t you a libertarian? Don’t these guys go against pretty much everything you believe in?
October 9th, 2006 at 10:38 am
The fact that Pres. Bush has tried to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq with as minimal a footprint as possible, in my opinion, reflects more poorly on our spoiled civilization than it does on him. He is afterall, an elected representative of the public, and I doubt Gore would have had the stomach to endure what the Russians did in the 1980’s if he were elected president.
Since the first gulf war and Bosnia, Americans have had this false belief that cataclysmic wars are over and now our military fights as if it were running errands to the grocery store. We treat any casualty on our side as a sign of incompitence rather than an inevitable sacrifice to achieve a neccessary goal. In an age of immidiate gratification and 30 second soundbites, if conflict isn’t resloved painlessly and quickly, then we must forfeit. We lack the resolve of our fathers’ and grandfathers’ generation as they grew up amidst suffering and sacrifice, while we have grown up with little-league games where noone keeps score and motzart for babies.
Our generation would have lost WWII no doubt. I am starting to believe that our civilization deserves to be destroyed by these bloodthirsty barbarians.
October 9th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Good stuff, JimmytheDhimmi!
As for this:
It ain’t true. Those parts of the country were ignored precisely because they were dangerous. Waiting for the Canadians, I guess, who are spectacular at these tough assignments. I figured US personnel were watching Jenin to see how it’s done. I guess the 23 to 52 score didn’t impress, and that’s natural. The Canadians are about 36 to 1500 now against Taliban (with the public here and CTV doing an hourly body count: talk about decadent!) and that’s a lot better. But they’re crying for help, which is partly for real, partly political so that the Liberals don’t accuse them of being unfeeling. It’s quite a comedy, Canadian politics!
October 9th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Clarification – CTV is only counting the Canadian bodies. I had to go to the Canadian government’s armed forces website for the other half of what George Carlin would call the “partial score.”
BTW: Isn’t it spelled Waziristan?
October 9th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Oops: the Canadian forces site is here.
October 9th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
We didn’t lose WWII because the leadership at the time was up to the challenge. And, yes, they too were partisan but not to the point of watching our nation lose its dignity and existence rather than concede that national unity really requires the support, cooperation and input from the entire population – not just the “base” ( or as we’re fast approaching the “radical base”).
If this struggle really is a struggle for our very existence as Bush claims then there are some very powerful yet very simple things he can do to fix it. He will not take those actions because this struggle is really about securing domestic support for a radical economic and social agenda. His real base will not allow such actions because that would derail their ambitions He would rather watch the terrorists regroup and succeed rather than concede that he must make amends with 1/2 the US population he has purposefully attacked to “win” two elections. The next time Bush or Cheney strikes out against the “Dem’s” and “leftiests” instead of actually addressing or fixing the real problems remember that is what allows us to lose Afghanistan and Iraq.
October 9th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Jimmi what a Dhimmwhitty has a prob wth “no one keepin score at lttle league games…” This is what bothers you in life? How bout some of our elected officials keepin score of how many times our “leader” has screwed up in a MAJOR LEAGUE way and how many times you can rationalize his incompetence as liberally induced? Here’s another one to chew on in your tobacci stained chompers: “I consider him (Vladimir Putin) my friend and a good partner in the WoT”. This is what our president said publicly about the leader of Russia! And you wonder why we’re goin ta hell in a handgun (oops) handbskt.
October 9th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
[...] This if from Donklephant,http://donklephant.com/ which is a pretty good blog with a great slogan: “Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Amazing Results.” The topic is the deteriorating situation in Afghanastan, which we’ve talked about here, including a warning from a former Director of the CIA over two years ago. [...]
October 9th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
What bothers me is that 3 weeks ago, a history-book moment happened in NYC when Ahmadinajad actually prayed for the apocalypse in front of every world leader (which ended in applause!); and all the leaders of our country can do is bicker about some lecherous congressman’s perverted emails.
0.8% of American soldiers deployed to Iraq have died in 3 years while fighting bloodthirsty terrorists and its time to bail out and redeploy to Okinawa.
Lets get it together here. I don’t care who made what mistake when so long as we learn from it and fight harder. If republicans can’t admit mistakes which prevents them from learning and adapting then screw them. If Democrats love to point out mistakes but address them by foreiture of the battle at hand, then screw them too.
Aww, nevermind. Project runway is on.