"Facing Reality in Afghanistan" and getting "back to basics" here.  For a number of months I have been posting about the precipitous situation in Afghanistan and frequently railing on about the phantom "NATO guy’s" perspective that all was well in Afghanistan.  The most recent of these posts was Afghanistan & the Taliban: The "Rule Book" (Layeha).  The simple point has been that the rosy colored glasses being worn by people in many quarters have simply been coloring the truth.

Once again, Doug Farah, writing on the Counterterorrism Blog and on his own blog in an article titled, A Serious Problem with The Surge

The Bush administration has finally turned its attention in a serious way to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. It has, of course, been seriously deteriorating for some time and the attention is likely to be brief.

Afghanistan has been the victim of international attention deficit disorder. Not only the Bush administration suffers this malady that could snatch victory from defeat. [I think he actually meant "snatch defeat from victory."]

What has changed in the past 18 months? The Taliban have new weapons, vehicles, communications equipment with encryption, and outreach and propaganda facilities.

It is overdue to seriously rethink how to try to retake the initiative. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have gone from a defeated, dejected force under fire even from fellow travelers, to resilient heroes in the past two years.

Given the lack of security, people are helping the Taliban, if not for conviction, then out of fear that, ultimately, the Taliban will return, as they have in several provinces already.

The massive focus on Iraq by the Bush administration would have been less damaging to Afghanistan if NATO and other allies had been more willing to pick up the slack.

Wishing that something were so (e.g., the defeat of the Taliban, the elimination of violence in Afghanistan, or the stability of the Karzai government) does not make it so.  And yet, not only the Bush Adminstration, but so many of the penguins that blindly believe that what they read on certain very opinionated web sites (not here!  but think World News Daily or NewsMax or Drudge), have maintained that any hint of a problem in Afghanistan is the result of the devious workings of the "mainstream media" [LImbaugh I believed coined the phrase, "drive-by" media] and its "liberal slant" not telling the truth, but raising the specter of an American defeat in the War on Terror.  That is pure BS.

Now, recognizing the devolving situation in Afghanistan, the United States as well as the NATA Alliance are moving toward ramping up aid and military presence.  Note Doug Farah’s point here:

The consequences of the years of complacency and blind assumptions are now clear. Coming up on six years after occupation of Afghanistan, more opium than ever before in its history is being grown. My sources recently returned from there say the Taliban (the role of al Qaeda is far less clear) are financing their resurgence, including premium payments for new armed recruits, from the opium and heroin trade. The central government controls little more than Kabul. Warlords have increased in power.

Perhaps none of this should be surprise.  So the Bush Administration is pushing to "surge troops" in Iraq, while simultaneously increasing aid to Afghanistan.

Bush Plans New Focus On Afghan Recovery
Extra $7 Billion Would  Go to Security, Roads

After the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion, the Bush administration is preparing a series of new military, economic and political initiatives aimed partly at preempting an expected offensive this spring by Taliban insurgents, according to senior U.S. officials.

Even as it trumpeted a change of course in Iraq this month, the White House has completed a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. It will ask Congress for $7 billion to $8 billion in new funds for security, reconstruction and other projects in Afghanistan as part of the upcoming budget package, officials said…

…Although U.S. officials say the Taliban insurgency does not pose an immediate threat to the Karzai government, they are eager to nip in the bud a potentially bloody Taliban spring offensive that could erode Afghani confidence in the central government and in the staying power of the international coalition that is trying to establish security across the country…[more]

Please!  I think that a dose of reality is in order here.  NATO’s move to increase presence and aid in Afghanistan is meeting with some resistance too!

Rice Presses Allies to Boost Afghan Aid
NATO, Europe Urged to Join U.S. in Increasing Commitments of Money and Manpower

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, citing the $10.6 billion in new aid that the Bush administration proposes to give Afghanistan, pressed NATO and European allies Friday to increase their contributions of money and manpower.

Rice’s push came as concern grows over the resurgence of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, massive increases in opium production and rising tension between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, where Taliban leaders and fighters have been allowed refuge…

…NATO authorities said the 33,250 NATO troops in Afghanistan represent about 85 percent of what military commanders say they need. The United States has contributed 12,000 troops to the NATO mission and has another 12,000 personnel operating in the country under independent U.S. command. The United States has said it will keep 3,200 of its troops in Afghanistan for an extra four months to provide reinforcements through the spring.

Some European ministers grumbled to reporters afterward that their countries are already making significant contributions and are overstretched by military commitments around the world. Those ministers said additional money and troops should come from countries now making few or no contributions…

The best part (NOT!!!) is that some of our supposed NATO allies don’t want to send their troops into the Southern part of Afghanistan where they might actually have to discharge a weapon or confront the Taliban.  This is a living, realtime example of how not to win a war. 

Whether the "surge" actually happens in Iraq may depend upon how many Republicans follow John Warner.  I frankly believe that the "surge" is needed, but that the strategies of making this move hopefully need to be very carefully calculated, with specific targets and intentions.  But at the same time, I have believed for quite some time that the War in Iraq had created a vacuum in Afghanistan, and that depending upon (or hoping) that NATO could step into the void and permit the peaceful transition to a new and democratic Afghanistan was naive at best.

You should also take into account that the Afghans themselves are refusing to spray the poppy crops over concerns that the spraying could damage legitimate crops.  Karzai says that he has a "committment" to iradicate the poppies, but won’t agree to spraying until 2008 if other efforts fail.  Clearly, as noted in the link, this concern is spurred by fear that the rural Afghans who depend on the income from the poppy fields would resist any spraying or iradication…"resist" probably should be read as "support the Taliban."

I’m sure that there is so much more that I could write right now on the subject, but why not leave it for now?  Other previous references to Afghanistan:


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