Downhill in Afghanistan

Sep 22, 2008 13:05


Monday 22 September 2008 (22 Ramadan 1429)

The most remote place on earth is now the most dangerous
Jonathan Power I jonatpower@aol.com

HOW far is downhill? Well, that’s like asking how long is a piece of string. But whatever the answer, the American/NATO military effort in Afghanistan, triggered by 9/11, seems to have all the marks of a quick descent.

In Barack Obama’s phrase, American public opinion doesn’t get it. How could they when Obama himself, supposedly a fresh eye on the international scene, bangs the drum for more troops and yet more force? Does European and Canadian opinion get it? Apart from the Canadians, who have had the good sense and the foresight to give a date for the withdrawal of their troops, public opinion appears to be asleep at the switch. Their young men are dying for a method of attack that the older men have devised without ever being challenged to think it through.

The policy, made within hours of the atrocity of 9/11, seemed to be to try to bomb the country to cinders, irrespective of the number of civilian casualties, not learning the lesson of Dresden, that wild bombing rather than leading to capitulation merely reinforces local opinion against the aggressor. Later, troops on the ground have continued to alienate local opinion with their seeming inability to differentiate between fighters and civilians. The war is being lost as the Taleban, defending Al-Qaeda or just fighting for their own piece of earth, gain the upper hand, improving their strength and their military skills by the month. The poppy growers watch their profits soar, with plenty of the profits going into Taleban coffers, because the West is unable to face honestly the one policy that might work - legalization of the drug trade, as the former minister of finance of Pakistan, Sartaj Aziz, suggested in Prospect magazine. (He argued for a controlled experiment in one province.)

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afghanistan, obama

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