Jim Cohen
Staff Writer
With the recent heated debate in Congress over the future of U.S. military involvement in Iraq, it seems easy to forget 27,000 American troops and another 21,000 NATO troops remain fighting in the forgotten war of Afghanistan.
More than five years after the U.S. military successfully attacked the Taliban government of Afghanistan for hiding and harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network, reports from the ground prove the task to rid this country from remaining a terrorist haven is more difficult than previously believed.
President Bush has revealed a plan to divert an Army brigade of 3,200 troops preparing to deploy to Iraq that would instead make its way to support the fledgling government of President Hamid Karzi in Afghanistan. This includes the president’s call for our NATO allies to contribute more troops to the fight. The increase is necessary to quell an anticipated spring offensive by insurgent Taliban and al-Qaida fighters preparing to battle U.S. and allied forces.
The inability of Karzi and his government to recruit and train a capable, standing Afghan military has allowed local tribesman and warlords to fill the nation’s security vacuum. With implicit consent from the Afghan government, warlords have been allowed to establish private armies to patrol the streets. Accused of committing human rights violations, these are the same warlords Karzi and NATO forces have previously fought to purge from the country. Warlords use the lucrative opium trade, a product of the nation’s staple cash crop, poppies, to fund their militia armies. Even with help from the tribesman and warlords, U.S. and NATO commanders have reported seeing violence rise to a six-year high.
America’s involvement in Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, has lasted longer than military operations for all of Word War II. The Nazis and Japanese were well organized and had sizeable military operation machines. Our terrorist enemies today don’t have nearly the kind of infrastructure our former foes had access to, and this is the reason the fight continues.
At a certain point, we must begin to ask why we are unable to achieve the objectives all Americans want to achieve — a more secure America. The objective is to win the war on terrorism so that tomorrow can be a better and safer day.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is where the nation’s military battles our enemies in the true war on terrorism. Iraq’s war is a nation-building exercise that has opened Pandora’s box of chaos and civil war.
Our brave soldiers are commanded to police an Iraqi sectarian battle while President Bush has ordered them to prop up a government whose members include an Iraqi parliament representative, Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, who was convicted of bombing a U.S. embassy in 1983.
If the president were serious about fighting the war on terror, he would order the troops to capture or kill Mohammed for murdering innocent Americans, but he chooses not to.
It is true: terrorists like Mohammed are in Iraq creating chaos. However, these terrorists were not in Iraq before U.S. war operations began. Bush should be given credit for helping more than 26 million Iraqis have democracy — a democracy that has elected parliament and government officials who openly support the United States’ terrorist enemies, like Hezbollah, who support killing American soldiers and civilians across the globe.
The massive diversion of our resources from Afghanistan to Iraq for nearly four years has created a mess. It has allowed the man responsible for knocking down our World Trade Towers, attacking our Pentagon and killing 2,973 Americans to go free without capture. Osama bin Laden remains at-large because Bush refuses to focus enough resources to kill him.
Lessons from World War II taught America that the first objective to defeating enemies and preventing them from attacking the United States is to capture them, break their will, and to destroy them before they destroy us. The next objective is to help rebuild war-torn nations so that we can create allies not enemies.
Instead of ordering soldiers to support a terrorist-linked Iraqi government engulfed in a civil war and an Afghan government supported by warlords, soldiers would be better served if they focused their efforts to get the terrorists before they get us. When given the necessary resources, our troops have always proven able to get the job done second to none. They are true heroes. And they would be even better served if they had a commander in chief willing to change course in order to get the job done.
02-22-2007