News from the other war-

[welsh]

W can't just screw up one war, he has to screw up two. And I thought we won the first one.

Guess again-

Afghanistan

Heading south

Feb 2nd 2006
From The Economist print edition

Despite much recent progress, Afghanistan is intolerably insecure

IN SELF-CONGRATULATORY mode, officials from Afghanistan and from the countries trying to rebuild it gathered in London this week, for a conference entitled “Building on Success”. Quite right too: no government wants to be involved with failure, and if Afghanistan is not to fail again, despite many recent advances, it needs more and better foreign involvement.

Above all, it needs security. For four years, American and allied troops have kept Taliban, al-Qaeda and other wolves at bay, allowing the formation of an elected government, reconstruction and growth at the centre. Northern Afghanistan, where America found local helpers to topple the Taliban, is also quite lawful and open to trade. But southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban emerged, is still at war. America has killed thousands of enemy fighters there without seeming to reduce their number a jot.

Sounds a bit like Iraq, no?

Oh and it's a bumper crop in Opiates this year!

Indeed, with an increase in suicide and roadside bombs, their capability has improved. More American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last year than in the previous three.

Sounds a bit like Iraq....

This violence keeps aid agencies, one of Afghanistan's two main sources of growth, away—and soldiers rarely dispense aid wisely or well.

Sounds a bit like Iraq.... I see a pattern here.

In southern Afghanistan, opium, the other main source, which threatens to turn the new state into a racket, is grown freely. This is not a success; it is a failure on which Afghanistan's future may turn.

Failure?
Failure?
What about the market! The invisible hand! The glory of American foreign policy in action...
Yeah....

Iraq....

Belatedly, some of Afghanistan's friends have recognised this. NATO, which has peacekeepers in the safer bits of the country, is due to advance south over the next few months. Its peacekeepers will aim to establish basic security, while American troops continue to hunt for members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Britain has already committed 3,300 troops to this mission, Canada 1,200, Australia and Denmark a few hundred each, while the Netherlands was this week agonising over whether to send 1,200. However, Germany, France, Italy and Spain declined to have their soldiers enter the badlands. That is a pity. After September 11th 2001, it should have become clear that the whole world's security will be compromised if Afghanistan is allowed to fail again.

ANd who says Nato is going down the tubes? Four Nato members decline to partake in a war that was begun by an attack against a NATO member.

Hey Germany, remember that whole nuclear deterrence thing back during the recent unpleasantness with the Russians?

Those NATO contingents that are heading south will have their work cut out. Helmand province, where the British troops will go, is both one of the wildest and a centre for the opium trade. NATO's forces will be too thin on the ground to eradicate that problem. The opium threat will have to be tackled, in the end, by the Afghan government, by means of policing and by finding other sources of cash for poppy-growing peasants. But NATO must lend every assistance in training and providing logistical and intelligence support to the government's fledgling counter-narcotic and other forces.

Well thin deployments are natural considering the commitment to Iraq....

Iraq...

For its part, the government of Hamid Karzai should realise that how it responds to such assistance will determine how much more help is to come. Ruling Afghanistan, a land with more age-old feuds than competent policemen, is a tricky task. Still, Mr Karzai has appointed far too many corrupt and ineffective ministers and governors.

Wait a second. Wasn't that one of the problems in Vietnam.
Iraq-Vietnam-Iraq!
No Iraq is not Vietnam.

(If it walks like a duck, and squats like a duck....)

The hole in the dyke
All these steps are necessary. But they will not be sufficient so long as the Taliban and its allies continue to find refuge in a neighbouring country, Pakistan. It will not be possible to seal the rugged and unfenced border between the two countries entirely. But the truth is that Pakistan, a notable recipient of American aid, has only intermittently attempted the task. For once and for all, America and its allies, especially those sending soldiers the Taliban's way, must call an end to this farce.

A rugged difficult border between two countries, with insurgents finding security on the sovereign territory of another.

Yeah... remember the VC sanctuaries in Cambodia during that unpleasant time in Vietnam....
Vietnam--- Iraq.....

W's legacy.

Well he didn't get my vote. What's your excuse?