Afghanistan ‘could slip back into chaos’

February 15, 2007

This week, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on conditions in our other war, the one in Afghanistan. Demonstrating the extent to which the nation remembers the conflict against the country that was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, no reporters bothered to show up for the event, despite testimony from Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the outgoing commander of all NATO troops in Afghanistan.

That’s a shame. Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since we toppled the the Taliban government in 2001, and opium production broke all records in 2006.

Just as importantly, Ron Hutcheson reports that while Iraq represents one crisis, “experts warn that Afghanistan could slip back into chaos.”

U.S. commanders are bracing for a spring offensive by Taliban insurgents that’ll test the staying power of the fragile U.S.-backed Afghan government.

In a sign of the administration’s concern, President Bush will deliver a speech Thursday highlighting plans for a dramatic increase in military and economic aid, but skeptics fear that the renewed focus on Afghanistan may be too little and too late.

“We have our finger in the dike because our resources and attention were turned toward Iraq,” said Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., a former Navy admiral who served in both conflicts. “This is the real front in the war on terrorism. It’s a daunting task, more daunting than it had to be because we let the opportunity almost slip away.”

Hutcheson described “potentially crippling challenges” facing the country, including Hamid Karzai’s shaky hold on power, a terrorist haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the Taliban and al Qaeda, and flourishing opium production.

At the hearing few bothered to attend, Gen. Eikenberry said, “A point could be reached at which the government of Afghanistan becomes irrelevant to its people, and the goal of establishing a democratic, moderate, self-sustaining state could be lost forever.”

Yes, Bush may be in the process of losing two wars.

The administration insists it’s taking the Afghan problem seriously. The president’s new budget asks Congress for $6.7 billion in emergency funding to help train Afghan security forces and rebuild the country. That, of course, is this year — for the last five years, U.S. aid to Afghanistan has averaged less than $3 billion a year.

And while we’re on the subject, Kevin Drum noticed that a recently declassified PowerPoint presentation on Iraq, created by CENTCOM in the summer of 2002, highlighted a “key planning assumption” before we launched our Iraqi invasion.

* Operations in Afghanistan transition to phase III (minimal air support over Afghanistan)

As Kevin put it, “Remember all that talk about how Iraq had no impact on Afghanistan and the search for al-Qaeda? Not true. At CENTCOM, anyway, winding down the effort in Afghanistan was apparently considered a prerequisite to action in Iraq.”

And in this case, the “winding down” hasn’t helped stabilize a country teetering on the brink.

He took an Iraq that was hungry for Democracy—and he screwed it up. He’s taken an Afghanistan that was just as hungry for Democracy—and ruined it. We’ve already seen what he thinks of—and does to—the concept of Democracy in the United States of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet George “Benedict Arnold” Bush—President, Poser, Puppet, and Traitorous Charlatan….

  • I wouldnt put it past Repubs to callously use the aftermath of leaving Afghanistan as a reason not to leave Iraq……watch

  • ShrubCo drank it’s own kool-aid.

    This whole mega-FUBAR anal blast is the exact equivalent of a guy on acid who steps out in front of a speeding locomotive fully confident that he can stiff arm the thing to a dead stop at the spot that he is standing. He’s completely confident, even past the time that he is vaporized into a bloody mist, that the train will succumb to his superior will and conviction.

    Shruby, on the LSD of power, has dragged a whole country along with him onto the tracks. It’s just ridiculous to let this deluded fruitcake drag us further into his, (and Cheney’s and the neo-con’s), hallucinations of control and invincibility.

  • This is why I really hate GW Bush and why I can’t blame NATO for being all that enthusiastic for this mission as we (NATO allies) are holding the bag in Afghanistan.

    This is a major reason why many of us Canadians aren’t really crazy about the Afghan mission. It isn’t the fact that our troops die, but the fact that they’re dying because GW Bush didn’t finish the job he told everyone he was going to do so he could fight that unnecessary war in Iraq.

  • It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the criminal incompetence of this administration. There are elements that are darkly comical, and yet…it’s like a Greek tragedy, too. I never dreamed I’d see my country reduced to what Bush has reduced it to.

  • One reason why it falls short of the standards set by Greek tragedy is that tragedy requires a person might have had some real right to expect greatness but who is caught up by his own hubris. Bush is just a moronic nitwit and sometimes thug who is currently getting the beating he so well deserves. The greatness and hubris are all in his own fevered brain (or what’s left of a brain). Even daddy and all daddy’s friends can’t bail him out of this one.

  • “U.S. commanders are bracing for a spring offensive by Taliban insurgents that’ll test the staying power of the fragile U.S.-backed Afghan government.”

    While McCain is worried about an Iraqi Tet offfensive, will a Taliban version have even worse consequences? It’s obvious they counted Afghanistan as a chicken before it hatched.

    It’s sad that even with a 24 hour news cycle no big news services covered this. Hey Wolf, is Anna Nicole still dead?

  • I am afraid that Rule #1 is actually axiomatically complete. It is always true that George W. Bush will wreck everything he sets his hands to. God help America.

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