Afghanistan
The Taliban has become a force to be reckoned with again in Afghanistan. These are the real terrorists. These are the people responsible for attacking us and it's where we're justified fighting and defending our strategic national interests. Unfortunately we never finished the job there because we got sidetracked going into Iraq. Because of that escapade we gave the Taliban time to regroup, reorganize and time to expand their area of control in that country.
In reality warlords control Afghanistan. Don't fool yourself that the country is democratic or President Bush's assertions that theTaliban was destroyed. Karzai controls Kabul and little else. Poppy production has set new records every year fueling the international heroin market.
The Taliban always kept control of the mountainous region north of Kandahar and steadily increased their area of influence as U.S. forces were transferred to Iraq. Now, as we're bogged down in a dangerous quagmire to the west, the Taliban forces are resurgent. American forces killed 40 Taliban fighters the other day. That's a sizable battle.
Our focus was taken off those it needed to be on. We let those responsible for September 11th off the hook because Bush was determined to get Saddam. Now the situation in Afghanistan has gotten worse when we can least afford it. We must sit down and completely re-evaluate our foreign policy and decide just what it is we want it to accomplish. Then we need a sane policy built around attaining the goals of that policy.
The first thing to be done is to scrap this ridiculous policy of pre-emption. Re-define what our strategic national interests are at this point and design the policy to reflect those interests. This is where we went wrong the past five years. We got away from our real strategic interests and it's weakened our country to the point we can't deal with the real threats.
It's time to go back to the drawing board.
In reality warlords control Afghanistan. Don't fool yourself that the country is democratic or President Bush's assertions that theTaliban was destroyed. Karzai controls Kabul and little else. Poppy production has set new records every year fueling the international heroin market.
The Taliban always kept control of the mountainous region north of Kandahar and steadily increased their area of influence as U.S. forces were transferred to Iraq. Now, as we're bogged down in a dangerous quagmire to the west, the Taliban forces are resurgent. American forces killed 40 Taliban fighters the other day. That's a sizable battle.
Our focus was taken off those it needed to be on. We let those responsible for September 11th off the hook because Bush was determined to get Saddam. Now the situation in Afghanistan has gotten worse when we can least afford it. We must sit down and completely re-evaluate our foreign policy and decide just what it is we want it to accomplish. Then we need a sane policy built around attaining the goals of that policy.
The first thing to be done is to scrap this ridiculous policy of pre-emption. Re-define what our strategic national interests are at this point and design the policy to reflect those interests. This is where we went wrong the past five years. We got away from our real strategic interests and it's weakened our country to the point we can't deal with the real threats.
It's time to go back to the drawing board.
posted by PA progressive @ Sunday, June 18, 2006
<< Home