Afghanistan

Most Americans have never heard of Section 60, let alone visited it.

We keep hearing from the Republicans about how somehow the McCain/Bush/Lieberman escalation of the Iraq quagmire will somehow bring us victory and solve all of our problems. My main questions I have had to date is just why are our soldiers dying in Iraq in the first place, what do they MEAN by victory (no exit strategy has yet been formulated!) and just where is Osama bin Laden, the guy who actually attacked America and who has never set foot in Iraq?

But now I have a new question. Just who is it who is winning? From what I can see, it sure as hell isn't us.

In Afghanistan, things have deteriorated so badly, that Republicans like Bill Frist are practically begging the Taliban to help us out. Remember the Taliban? Our enemies who are allied with Osama bin Laden? Well, Bill Frist wants us to patch things up with the Taliban and get them to pull our asses out of the fire in Afghanistan. So, Osama bin Laden is still free, al-Qaeda still operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we are begging the Taliban to rejoin the government. Who's winning in Afghanistan?

Now let's look at the latest developments in Iraq, a nation pretty much undergoing a civil war thanks to our failure to actually have a plan for what to do once we removed their dictator. The Iraqi government, the one we put into power, is now offering amnesty (after a three month period where legal challenges are allowed) to all members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party if they return to their official posts in the government. Yes, the Iraqi government wants to REINSTATE the very group we overthrew. Now what is wrong with this OTHER than the fact that we are reinstating the very group we overthrew? Simple. This is also the party that represents the Sunni minority and disenfranchised the Shi'ite majority and the Kurdish minority. We are being attacked from at least two sides: the Shi'a Islamists and the Sunni former-Baathists. If we make our peace with the latter, who oppressed the Shi'ites and Kurds in the first place, isn't that in essence simply making the civil war worse? We are siding with the dictators...again.

Everybody's favorite opium-soaked red-headed stepchild.

President Bush, 6/19/03: We sent a clear message to the Taliban in Afghanistan: if you harbor and train terrorists, you will be held account. The Taliban is no more, and the people of Afghanistan are free, thanks to America and our friends and allies.

Reality, 2/27/07: A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded 11 outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.

There's more recent Afghani history in my archives here and a harrowing first-person account of the nearly impossible counterinsurgency here. Afghanistan is but a poor fading star of multinational neglect when compared to the supernova of Iraqi failure, but still a glaring reminder of our war on terror half-assery. I guess we could try and get Pakistan to help out, what after (a) its top scientist sold nuclear secrets to every rogue state in the rogue state yellow pages (b) its intelligence service helped to birth the Taliban (c) it signed truces allowing for a regrouped Taliban safe haven,

How many years has it been since we invaded Afghanistan? And what have we accomplished? The latest news indicates we accomplished little. The Taliban still exist and the war in Afghanistan is once again threatening to pour over into neighboring nations. From Salon.com:

Asserting a right to self-defense, American forces in eastern Afghanistan have launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who attack remote U.S. outposts, the commander of U.S. forces in the region said Sunday.

The skirmishes are politically sensitive because Pakistan's government, regarded by the Bush administration as an important ally against Islamic extremists, has denied that it allows U.S. forces to strike inside its territory.

The use of the largely ungoverned Waziristan area of Pakistan as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters has become a greater irritant between Washington and Islamabad since Pakistan put in place a peace agreement there in September that was intended to stop cross-border incursions.

Army Col. John W. Nicholson, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said in an Associated Press interview that rather than halt such incursions, the peace deal has led to a substantial increase.

Pakistani border forces, which had been active in stopping Taliban incursions into Afghanistan as recently as last spring, stopped offensive actions against them once the peace deal took effect, he said.