Some might argue that a “just war” is an oxymoron, but after 9/11, the war in Afghanistan was, in my opinion, a fair and upright compromise. I felt the same about the Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait. When the Northern Alliance joined our forces, it seemed that we were on track to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan and our campaign seemed to have been perceived as a success. Reinforcing this perception, our policy makers and experts told us that we have nothing more to fear, as al Qaeda and its sponsoring regime, the Taliban, were already gone, and the country had a new pro-Western government. Unfortunately, the facts clearly suggest otherwise.
Suddenly, the news about Afghanistan is turning from page 8 to page 4 in the newspapers. Suddenly the related Google sites have increased. Suddenly, journalists from the front are reporting that the war is escalating. What began as just and justified action after 9/11 has turned into what some call a half-war. Despite the interpretation to the contrary, we have not succeeded in crushing the Taliban or Al Qaeda, nor have we turned their ideology, Islamic totalitarianism, into a lost cause. Instead, the Bush administration’s reluctance to fight more decisively, if not ruthlessly, appears to have increased the enthusiasm of the jihadists.
The proof is in the pudding. As this article is being written, the US military is quietly conducting the largest military offensive in Afghanistan since our troops invaded that country in 2001. “The Taliban have returned and we have the next 90 days to crush them,” he said. a senior US military official The offensive, “Operation Mountain Thrust”, involves nearly 11,000 US troops and is concentrated in four southern Afghanistan provinces.
“Return”, in fact. The Taliban have resurfaced and their spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, remains at large, probably in Pakistan, where our soldiers cannot operate. Armed with a cache of lethal weapons, Taliban and al Qaeda soldiers have renewed their offensive. Driven by money from drug trafficking (opium) and the recruitment of fighters, they fight fiercely to regain power. In recent weeks they have mounted a series of suicide and rocket attacks against US and NATO forces; in fact, more US troops have died in Afghanistan in the past 18 months than during the height of the war. Taliban forces have besieged several southern provinces and officials estimate that in some, the number of Taliban is far greater than that of the police and the Afghan National Army. The Taliban are even said to bravely walk through the villages brandishing Kalashnikovs.
How can it be that four years after the war started, the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters are once again becoming a serious threat? Well, for starters, leaders like Mullah Omar “don’t wield power like a military general does,” Seth Jones, an analyst at the California-based think tank RAND Corp., wrote in the spring issue of Survival magazine. Instead, they leave “tactical and operational” control to local cells, “which act as franchises.” As we learned after 9/11, Al-Qaeda operates in the same way.
Clearly, the flexible alliance that opposes the Karzai government and the US-led reconstruction has not been destroyed nor has its spirit been crushed. With moral fortitude, he regrouped and launched a bold comeback for a number of reasons including but not limited to the following:
1) First, the seemingly endless (and, for many, questionable) war in Iraq has distracted the United States from the difficult task of suppressing the Taliban and rebuilding Afghanistan. Iraq has absorbed resources and money that could have been better deployed in Afghanistan.
2) The rules of engagement are terribly confusing and confusing. In this regard, some argue that victory in Afghanistan requires two things: a) that we had to destroy the Taliban by focusing exclusively on capturing or killing them and B) that we had to ensure that a non-threatening, non-Islamic regime took their place. But others argue that we should try to more strategically hunt down the Taliban fighters only if we simultaneously show “compassion” to the Afghans. They add that our purpose in being in Afghanistan is not to superimpose our style of government on the Afghan people. To add to the confusion, some US-allied counties in Afghanistan will fight; others will not.
3 The Taliban know that Afghan citizens are unlikely to risk their lives to support the Karzai government, which many see as corrupt. Afghanistan’s current problem may be related to weak government institutions as well as the strong enemy.
4) The insurgents have found a safe haven in Pakistan, staying out of reach of the Afghan and international security forces. Apparently, the pro-Taliban policy of the Pakistani government changed under pressure from the United States after 9/11, but the keyword here is “apparently”, and Karzai knows that very well.
The insurgents appear to be betting that the West does not have the political fortitude to remain long-term. However, it is argued that deploying troops to support the government of President Hamid Karzai and keeping them there is, I think, a sacrifice worth making. After all, 9/11 demonstrated what happened the last time the world community left Afghanistan. Whichever philosophical path we take, and no matter how we reconcile our rules of engagement, it is time for the Bush Administration to pick up the pace (and “Operation Mountain Thrust” is a good start). At least, we owe that to our soldiers who fight there. Afghanistan must not become a forgotten war.
“Too bad we weren’t distracted by other adventures. Think about how Afghanistan ‘could’ have been the bright light of democracy in the Middle East. Unfortunately, if only they had more oil.” Posted on the web on Jun 20, 2006 at 4:22:53 pm by someone named kharma
