Afghanistan: The Unfinished War Continues

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, they probably had no idea the war would go on for nine years and end in failure. Soon, our war in Afghanistan will have gone on for five years, though at a lower intensity than what occurred in the 80s and without the huge refugee problem.

Today, Afghanistan remains unfinished business. In 2002, Afghanistan was put on the back burner by the Bush Administration in order to go to war in Iraq. In the meantime, the usual problems that always trace themselves back to Rumsfeld's office, such as a lack of a plan, continue. Thomas E. Ricks of The Washington Post has an article on the frequently forgotten but continuing war (hat tip to Chris Floyd):

As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

The airstrikes appear to have increased in recent days as the United States and its allies have launched counteroffensives against the Taliban in the south and southeast, strafing and bombing a stronghold in Uruzgan province and pounding an area near Khost with 500-pound bombs.

U.S. officials say the activity is a response to an increasingly aggressive Taliban, whose leaders realize that long-term trends are against them as the power of the Afghan central government grows.

"I think the Taliban realize they have a window to act," Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, commander of the 22,000 U.S. troops in the country, said in a recent interview. "The enemy is working against a window that he knows is closing."

But some experts believe that the Taliban, the fundamentalist Muslim rulers ousted by the U.S. invasion in 2001, have sensed an opening in the south as the central government in Kabul has failed to gain much influence there and as the United States prepares to transfer command to NATO.

It's disturbing to hear different military officers spend years telling us that the enemy is on its last legs, particularly when we know what kind of message machine that is being run out of the Pentagon and White House. Afghanistan can be stabilized—certainly our NATO allies think so—but it requires understanding the job and devoting some resources to it. It also means avoiding blunders that undermine our purpose in Afghanistan if indeed our purpose is to leave a stable government behind. The bombing of innocent civilians while pursuing fighters on the ground has never been proved by anyone to be an effective strategy; here's more from the same Washington Post article:

The enemy in Afghanistan is "adaptive" and "very smart," Freakley said. One tactic they have used lately to counter U.S. dominance in the air is to withdraw, when fighting, into compounds where civilians are located, which has resulted in civilian deaths in two sets of airstrikes near Kandahar.

The spate of recent civilian deaths caused by the bombing has hurt the U.S. image in Afghanistan.

In late May, the Taliban occupied a village 20 miles from Kandahar, prompting some of the U.S. airstrikes, including one that killed at least 15 civilians. Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for an investigation of the incident and asked the top U.S. military commander in the country, Army Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, for an explanation.