Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Are the Taliban Winning?

Here is a report on the situation in Afghanistan that is ominous because of the despair that is setting in. Note also the realization among the Afghans that they have been abandoned by the Americans. The one war the Bush administration need to fight and win was this one, and they abandoned it in order to go after a foolish thug -- who happened to be sitting at a strategic location in the oil-rich Middle East. Pray that the administration will wake up to their folly.

Current History
Letter from Afghanistan: Are the Taliban Winning?
by Ahmed Rashid

"In Kabul today, most Afghans, from illiterate cooks to well-educated civil servants, take it for granted that the Taliban are coming back to power.
Afghans speak of yet another American betrayal...
Public morale has been most affected by the revived Taliban insurgency ... and by the gradual withdrawal of US troops from the insurgency-hit areas and their replacement by less well-equipped or less motivated NATO forces.
The Taliban have been able to launch attacks involving battalion-size units of over 1,000 men...
Afghans ... believe that ... the US administration never had the intention to stabilize or rebuild Afghanistan
While Iraq has bathed in US funding for infrastructure projects ... there is less electricity in Kabul now than there was under Soviet occupation...
A major problem for the West is its inability or refusal to acknowledge past failures in Afghanistan, or the country's present predicament, and to offer serious future commitments of both money and troops.
Until that happens, Afghans will continue to believe that they are losing the war against the Taliban."

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