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Do You Think We Are Losing in Afghanistan?
by James Glaser
That seems to be a pretty simple question. If you think about George Bush's war in Afghanistan, I would have to say the answer is, yes. We have had our troops fighting there since 2001, and today we had a reminder that things are not going as Washington would like. Here is a headline from USA Today, "Police abandon district in western Afghanistan, officials say." It seems, according to the article that this is "the second time this month the government has lost control of a town in the area." Remember Mullah Omar? He was and is the head of the Taliban, the government of Afghanistan who we attacked. If you think back, he is the guy with one eye. Back in 2001, when George Bush started the war over there, Mullah Omar was one of the guys we wanted to take out. Another guy we wanted was Osama bin Laden. Well guess what, both of those guys are still in or near Afghanistan. They haven't stopped fighting. The Taliban never gave up, they never surrendered, and they never signed a truce. George Bush might think that the war over there is done with, but the guys we are fighting don't see it that way. Here is another tip that tells us that things are not going according to plan. We now have more troops in Afghanistan than at any time since we first attacked that country. If the war was over like George Bush would have us believe, or even if things were going better, we would have fewer troops there.. One of the stories Washington and our puppet government in Kabul would have us believe, is that the Taliban are now working with the opium growers. Baryalaj Kahn, spokesman for the police in Afghanistan has blamed the Taliban militants for attacks, saying they were involved in the drug trade. If you think back, the Taliban had all but stopped poppies growing in Afghanistan before we attacked them. Drugs like opium and heroin are against their religion. The drug trade only started up again, when we took charge of the country. The United States turned over most of the country to War Lords, who started growing poppies again. Now under George Bush's installed government, Afghanistan supplies about 80% of the world's illegal opium and heroin. It could be that the war was all about getting the drug trade started again. There is big money in drugs, and I am sure it gets spread around. So, maybe we are not losing, maybe we are supposed to let the Afghans grow poppies and manufacture heroin. Maybe that is what this war was all about and we just used Osama and the Taliban as an excuse to get in there, because for sure we have not tried to win this war at all. When George Bush attacked Afghanistan, there is little doubt that Afghanistan was the most pitiful country on earth, and that the United States was the most powerful. It is now 2007 and the Taliban are taking back parts of the country. Reports this week tell how Osama and al Qaeda are starting up their training camps again. Tell me, is George Bush the biggest loser we have ever had for a President? No President ever wants to lose a war on his watch. George Bush might lose two on his. Both Afghanistan and Iraq have turned out to be waiting games, and I do believe that the people who live in those two countries can wait for victory a lot longer than we are willing to. |
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