There is a familiar litany of reasons for the growing opposition in this country to our involvement in Iraq. The fact that it is not going well is certainly a key one, along with the terrible human cost. The war is a financial drain and, even more critically, a burden on our armed forces, the Army and Marine Corps in particular, that makes it difficult to meet our other commitments. The wear and tear on equipment will require huge expenditures down the road as will the care of thousands of badly injured troops with permanent physical and other disabilities. Standards for this volunteer Army have been lowered in order to meet recruiting needs. In short, our armed forces are under terrific strain. And to cap it off, for all the sacrifice and effort in Iraq, we may actually have done much more harm than good in the overall struggle against Islamic terrorists by stimulating recruiting to organizations such as al-Qaida, providing a first rate training ground for them and further alienating the Muslim world.
However, another price paid for the Bush administration’s not so excellent Iraq misadventure is that our preoccupation with that unfortunate country has allowed the Taliban a new lease on life in Afghanistan and they are taking full advantage.
You remember Afghanistan, right? That’s the landlocked, mountainous country in South-central Asia whose former rulers, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban, had harboured the murderous Osama bin Ladin and al-Qaida thugs who attacked us on September 11th, 2001. With the almost unanimous support of the American people, the United States engineered the defeat of the Taliban. However, in the first of a series of military missteps, we failed to deal either al-Qaida or the Taliban the crushing defeat we should have in the mountains of Tora Bora - and Osama bin Ladin escaped.
Instead of continuing to focus attention on Afghanistan, the Bush administration seized the opportunity offered by the horror of 9/11 to invent a largely non-existent threat in Iraq, cherry-picked the intelligence regarding possible (but as we now know, non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, lied about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to al-Qaida, whipped up public fear, intimidated the media and the political opposition and - well the rest, as they say, is history. We invaded Iraq for no good reason and now we’re stuck there with no decent way out. On the fateful day of that unprovoked invasion, Osama must have thought his birthday had come early; it is hard to imagine an action better designed to burnish his own image in the Muslim world whilst tarnishing that of the United States.
In Afghanistan meanwhile, the effort to bring security and stability to that impoverished land faltered. In truth this nation presented a prickly dilemma for the U.S. The tough mountain tribesmen had defeated the British in the 19th century and fought the Soviet invaders to a standstill in the 1980’s. It was essential that the footprint of U.S. and allied military forces remain as light as possible so as not to turn the people of Afghanistan against the “foreign invader”. Sensitivity to this issue was at least part of the reason for the disastrous decision to rely on friendly Afghan tribal forces at Tora Bora rather than to deploy U.S. forces against the still-powerful remnants of al-Qaida. The result was that bin Ladin and most of his force escaped. With the Taliban expelled the administration foolishly and prematurely turned its attention to Iraq before the job of establishing a safe and secure environment for reconstruction was anywhere close to a reality.
Military assets such as soldiers of the 5th Special Forces Group with their specialist knowledge of the Middle East and similarly qualified CIA operatives were shifted from Afghanistan in preparation for the Iraq invasion and occupation. The hunt for Osama bin Ladin became a lesser priority and the trail went cold. The Taliban were able to regroup in the border areas of Pakistan.
The people of Afghanistan, particularly in the south and east of the country, have too often felt the brunt of American over-reliance on airpower to hunt for Taliban elements, but all too little of the economic benefits of investment and reconstruction. Gradually the Taliban has started to reassert influence if not outright control in areas where the Afghan government and U.S. forces were largely absent.
The result is that the last year has seen the fiercest fighting between U.S. and now NATO forces and the Taliban since Operation Anaconda in March 2002. A steady trickle of American and allied, primarily British and Canadian soldiers, have been killed or wounded in the fighting in the east and south, near Kandahar. The Taliban have fought in strength and, at times, from fortified positions in areas where they have established control.
The Taliban have also adopted the tactics and methods of the insurgents in Iraq such as in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide attacks, which are now common-place. In short, neither Afghanistan nor the U.S. assisted government in Kabul led by Hamid Karzai is secure. Large areas of the country remain unsafe and efforts at reconstruction have proceeded slowly if at all. Fewer Afghans believe that the Americans care about helping their country. If they cease to believe that their well-being is facilitated by the foreign presence, the U.S. and NATO forces could find themselves in even bigger trouble.
Had the U.S. focused on getting it right the first time we could have avoided the problems we now face. This administration has developed an alarming propensity for fumbling its attempts at military intervention.
Yet Afghanistan is a country we cannot afford to lose. Nor must we confuse the misguided strategic blunder of invading Iraq with the justifiable attack on al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Here we struck back at those who attacked us on 9/11. We cannot allow the country to slide back into the hands of a fundamentalist Islamic regime that makes Iran’s appear ultra-liberal in comparison. We owe it to the people of Afghanistan to make their country safe and whole. Unlike in Iraq, we still have a decent chance to get it right in Afghanistan. Despite the best efforts of the incomparably incompetent Bush administration to mess this one up as well, we must prevail.
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