Four US soldiers are reported dead in Afghanistan today after al-Zawahiri posted a video calling for insurrection against US forces there. What’s more our “ally”, President Karzai is no longer issued a statement that we need a new approach on the “War on Terror” because the old one ain’t working no more:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader urged Afghans in a new videotape today to rise up against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, prompting President Hamid Karzai to denounce the terror fugitive as “the enemy of the Afghan people.” Four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in eastern Afghanistan.
Karzai also called on the international community to reassess its approach to the war on terror, saying the deaths of hundreds of Afghans, including Taliban militants, in fighting with U.S.-led forces was “not acceptable.” […]
A clearly frustrated Karzai also said the coalition approach of hunting down militants does not focus on the roots of terrorism itself.
“I strongly believe … that we must engage strategically in disarming terrorism by stopping their sources of supply of money, training, equipment and motivation,” Karzai said.
War not acceptable? That’s the only thing President Bush knows how to decide upon, Mr. Karzai. Tanks, planes, bombs, lots of collateral damage — that’s what the Bush administration supports. I thought you knew that by now.
Too bad all that strutting by our Commander-in-Chief after Zarqawi was blown up last week was so short-lived. You kill one terrorist leader in Iraq, but up pops a litter more in Afghanistan. It’s no longer the central front on the war on terror, so I guess they got jealous. Al Queda and the Taliban wanted to send a message that they’re still there, some 3 and 1/2 years after we officially liberated the Afghan people.
Message delivered.
(cont.)
Seriously, anyone who’s been paying attention to what’s been going on in Afghanistan knows that Mr. Bush’s platitudes about how we have brought freedom to the Afghan people rang hollow. Al Queda is still there in force, the Taliban has not been crushed and is enjoying a revival, and drug lords and warlords rule over most of the countryside outside Kabul. In short, President Bush “cut and ran” before he accomplished the mission.
We already have one failed state in Iraq, and it’s becoming more clear as each day passes that, by effectively abandoning Afghanistan before Al Queda and the Taliban had been eliminated in order to invade Iraq, we’ve created another one. Yes, we have our military bases there, and lots of opportunities for our soldiers to practice their combat skills under live conditions, but what else do we have?
Karzai’s government has limited control, at best, beyond the borders of his capitol city. The drug trade has returned with a vengeance to ruin lives over here, while lining the pockets of criminals and terrorists over there. The lives of ordinary people have improved little, if at all.
In neighboring Pakistan, we have an ally in General Mussharef, who refuses to fully support the hunt for Osama bin Laden, much less prosecute the leading figure in the illicit atomic weapons technology trade, Abdul Qadeer Khan, not only the father of Pakistan’s bomb, but quite possibly the godfather of North Korea’s, as well. With military and intelligence forces infested with supporters of radical Islamic clerics and Al Queda sympathizers, we are just one bullet (or car bomb) away from having a fundamentalist Islamic state in Southwest Asia that already possesses fully operational nuclear weapons.
Unlike in fantasy games where you can make up your own reality as you go along, in real life mistakes have consequences. George Bush has made mistake after mistake in his Presidency, from failing to heed warnings about an impending Al Queda attack in the Summer of 2001, to invading Iraq with too few troops to secure the country, to wasting billions of our tax dollars on a corrupt enterprise to rebuild Iraq, to failing to strike a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program in 2003. His mistake in failing to complete the mission in Afghanistan may ultimately prove to be his most costly one, however.
Not costly for him, obviously. Never for him. But very costly for the safety and security of the people of this nation whom he is pledged to serve.
Four US soldiers killed in Afghanistan
