Wanna take a guess? It’s the place where we are losing the war on terror and the place where everyone (even those damned liberals) thought we had won a “decisive victory” six years ago. Are those enough clues for you? Well, here’s one more: its name begins with an “A” and ends with a “stan” and that rhymes with Taliban:
The foreign secretary, David Miliband, and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, arrived in Afghanistan today as concern continues to grow over the progress of operations against the Taliban and its effects on the unity of Nato. […]
Miliband and Rice arrived in the capital, Kabul, then flew to the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south of the country to look at the front lines of the Nato-led fight against Afghan insurgents. […]
Rice had been in London for talks with Miliband and the prime minister, Gordon Brown, where they issued a renewed appeal to Nato allies in Afghanistan to take on a greater share of the fighting.
They are likely to hold discussions on how to continue building the capability of Afghanistan’s own forces and selecting someone acceptable to the Afghan government for the role of coordinating international civilian and military operations.
The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, rejected the candidacy of Lord (Paddy) Ashdown last month, apparently fearing he would become a viceroy figure.
It’s so hard being the front woman for an Empire these days. Hard when the barbarian hordes won’t admit defeat, and when your “allies” don’t want to do your fighting for you and your hand-picked puppet doesn’t like the idea of having a Procounsel appointed to watch over him, and especially hard when the Emperor-in-Chief is convinced that another war against an enemy of his own choice is far more important than defeating the people who made 9/11 possible.
Put yourself in the shoes of our NATO allies who have committed troops to Afghanistan. They originally signed up for the role of peacekeepers to assist the US is re-building Afghanistan into a stable, peaceful and preferably democratic country. They didn’t sign on to become front line troops in America’s “Global War on Islamofascism.”
Several NATO countries (Canada for one) are being pressured by their citizens to remove their troops from Afghanistan. They can’t help but wonder why the United States, who admits that the Taliban and Al Qaida are regaining strength in Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, expects their men and women in uniform to become targets for Taliban attacks in the dangerous southern half of that country so that President Bush can continue promoting his indefinitely prolonged “surge” strategy in Iraq as a “success.” They can’t understand why Bush is ignoring the real risk of Afghanistan collapsing into a disaster of untold proportions and why he is apparently unwilling to devote the American military, diplomatic and economic resources necessary to prevent that from happening.
And they don’t take kindly to pressure from American officials such as Robert Gates to put their soldiers in harm’s way for the benefit of American policy objectives (or lack thereof) in the region. Indeed, Germany essentially gave Gates the finger when he demanded they deploy more of their troops to the South where most of the fighting is occurring:
A bitter diplomatic row between Germany and the United States deepened yesterday after Berlin flatly rejected demands from Washington that it deploy troops in war-torn southern Afghanistan and angrily dismissed the request as “impertinent” and a “fantastic cheek”.
It seems the US no longer calls the shots at NATO, nor do our European allies, with the possible exception of the United Kingdom, follow our lead. One more example of how Bush’s wars and “unilateral” approach to foreign relations have weakened the power of the United States, and its ability to achieve its goals. So, if we are getting the stiff arm from NATO, this begs the question, why is Secretary of State Rice making such a highly publicized visit to Afghanistan now? I think the answer is an easy one. Diplomatic posturing and photo ops for US domestic consumption, creating the appearance that the President is doing something about the renewed threat of the Taliban, is all that this administration can or will do. Bogged down in Iraq, with our military already stretched to its limits and beyond, there is little else they can do but spout angry rhetoric and make impossible demands.
So Secretaries Rice and Gates will continue to publicly harangue our European allies regarding Afghanistan, because they literally have no other tricks up their sleeves. There are no troops to send because all our available forces are tied down in Iraq, there are no fancy diplomatic initiatives to propose (Bush doesn’t do diplomacy, remember?) and there is no more money in the US government coffers to allocate to this forgotten war in the little country without any oil because it’s all being sucked in to the joint black holes of the Pentagon and Iraq.
Furthermore, by making these highly publicized speeches and visits, jet setting from London to Berlin to Kuwait to Kabul to wherever, Rice and Gates are laying the foundation for blaming the Euros should the worst case scenario in Afghanistan occur: a failed state dominated by gangsters, warlords and the very terrorists we were told had been summarily defeated back in January, 2002. Once more the American public is being set up to believe another big lie; namely that the Taliban is back in Afghanistan, and Al Qaida has regrouped and is stronger than ever, because our European “surrender monkey” friends have stabbed us in the back.
Because, if there is one thing this administration and this President are good at, it is passing the buck for their own massive failures, strategic mistakes and nefarious misdeeds onto the shoulders of others. And that, my friends, is the true Bush Doctrine at work.