Friday, January 20, 2012

Afghanistan Is A Bipartisan War - 2

In the first post of this series, in February of 2009, Dredd Blog commented on the problems of the Afghanistan war.

In that post we pointed out studies showing that weapons were going from Americans to the Taliban, and that the economy at home was being weakened by the war.

Since then a public verbal conflict has been going on between the U.S. and the Karzai Administration in Kabul, but that was not the end of the matter, because things are a lot worse now and growing worse by the day:
American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report obtained by The New York Times.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

Underscoring the danger, four French service members were killed and a number were wounded on Friday when a gunman wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon on them, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan where the incident occurred and a Western official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. The Afghan police official, Asdullah Hamidi, said the shooting happened in Tagab District, an area that is viewed as dangerous and dominated by insurgent forces.
(NY Times, emphasis added). Can anyone seriously make the case for the continuation of this war as is?

Diplomacy that brings several nations of that area together, so they can resolve their own region's tensions, is a better working strategy.

There is little wonder why many experts and other observers, including Dredd Blog, can't see any valid reason for its continuation, therefore concluding that the "canned" stated reasons for the continuation are not valid.

An artist did his interpretation of the progress of the Afgan war:


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