Americans should be raising their voices in protest at the way both fronts in the “War on Terror” are being conducted. But, more disturbing than Iraq is our quagmire in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s US-anointed President, Hamid Karzai, is highly critical of America’s “handling” of the War in Afghanistan. Innocent Afghans continue to die at the hands of American soldiers. Security is still a joke in the country. The US is still searching rural Afghan villages for Taliban and Al Qaeda members while everyone with an internet connection knows that the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped to Pakistan’s Northwest Tribal Regions long ago. Our forces in the country are understaffed and overwhelmed. Tribal warlords and local chieftains barely bother with Kabul, the capital. And Afghanistan is free only in name.
And all of this is not to mention that our own generals are saying that we should expect things to “get worse” in Afghanistan this year.
What is going on here? What could possibly be the reason that the White House stopped looking for Osama bin Laden or hunting down the Taliban and Al Qaeda??? How in the world did we let the Taliban set up shop next door in Pakistan?
Unfortunately, Bush has ensured it so that Afghanistan will remain fertile ground for extremist groups hostile to the United States for at least another decade. Probably another generation.
Afghanistan should have been our number one priority from 9/12 onward. No question.
But, dwelling on the Bush Administration’s criminal flaws can not be our number one concern at the moment.
Now we need to turn as much of our attention as possible back to Afghanistan and get the job done once and for all. Get the job done right.
The country needs to be cleared of all terrorists. It needs security. It needs rebuilding. It needs to learn self-sufficiency. And it needs to be lead down the path towards prosperity. Like an orphan we need to take Afghanistan by the hand and finally treat her like a long lost family member now found.
This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky-polly anna-rant. All of this is possible. All of this can be done.
Our future depends on it.
We cannot forget what happened last time we let Afghanistan fall into ruin. We cannot let it happen again. And at the moment it looks like Afghanistan may be slipping further down that slope. Time to regroup. Time to refocus.
The US is saying that we should expect things to get more violent in Afghanistan this year. Yet another failure of the Bush Administration.
Remember how in the years preceding 9/11 the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan during the power vacuum and chaos that was created after the Soviets’
withdrawal?
Remember how the Taliban instituted sharia law throughout Afghanistan?
Well, if you didn’t know, now you know.
And an interesting fact that never got that much press was that after the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 the Taliban simply moved across the border into the Northwest Tribal regions of Pakistan and opened up shop.
And this week the Taliban successfully instituted sharia law in the region.
And now the Taliban is holding Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afganistan hostage.
Umm … Is anyone else concerned with this? We should be. Without the Taliban, Al Qaeda wouldn’t have had Afghanistan as a safe haven for recruiting and training terrorists and plotting 9/11. And the Taliban is most assuredly giving asylum to Osama Bin Ladin (our real public enemy number 1).
This is a domino effect all over again. A domino effect that ended in 9/11 last time. And we don’t want history to repeat itself. Make no mistake, what is happening, or being allowed to happen, right now in the Tribal Regions of Pakistan will have direct consequences in the United States and in many Western nations.
Not that I need to remind anyone, but who should be held accountable for this disastrous policy failure of allowing the Taliban to escape and regroup and thrive? President George W. Bush.
