{"id":9937,"date":"2007-02-15T09:45:07","date_gmt":"2007-02-15T14:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9937.html"},"modified":"2007-02-15T09:45:07","modified_gmt":"2007-02-15T14:45:07","slug":"afghanistan-could-slip-back-into-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/afghanistan-could-slip-back-into-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan ‘could slip back into chaos’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on conditions in our other<\/i> 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<\/a> for the event, despite testimony from Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the outgoing commander of all NATO troops in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

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

Just as importantly, Ron Hutcheson reports<\/a> that while Iraq represents one crisis, “experts warn that Afghanistan could slip back into chaos.”<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Yes, Bush may be in the process of losing two<\/i> wars.
\n
\nThe 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. <\/p>\n

And while we’re on the subject, Kevin Drum noticed<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

* Operations in Afghanistan transition to phase III (minimal air support over Afghanistan)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

And in this case, the “winding down” hasn’t helped stabilize a country teetering on the brink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}