Rise In Afghan Violence No Surprise
Is anyone surprised that violence in Afghanistan has risen 45% since last year? You shouldn’t be.
The Taliban are convinced they’ve beaten us and they’re stepping up the attack to drive us out as quickly as possible. This should be, for Obama, one of his cherished “learning moments”, the lesson being that when your military is actively engaged overseas, you don’t announce to the enemy when you are planning to withdraw your troops, especially after you campaigned on winning the Afghan war.
The terrorists don’t care how many of their soldiers or citizens have to die to drive us out and that’s the difference in this conflict. No matter how by the book we go, they are playing with a different set of rules altogether and their rules say kill the infidel. The sad part is, we could win with our rules but for the reluctance to effectively use them for fear of international finger-wagging. No one wants to have happen to them what happened to President Bush, namely being labeled a war criminal and actually being in jeopardy of being brought up on charges (though I doubt Mr. Kucinich’s bleating was really seriously considered.)
The 45% number comes from the recent United Nations quarterly report as reported in Reuters yesterday (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65J01G20100620?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews ) saying that roadside bombings and suicide bombings have risen dramatically and that more “complex” operations show that the local groups linked to al Qaeda are growing more capable, which Secretary General Ban ki-Moon called “alarming”.
Alarming indeed. But is there still an opportunity to succeed in Afghanistan?
Nearly every time coalition forces strike targets in Afghanistan, civilians will be injured or killed, and not because they are simply regarded by us as unavoidable casualties, but because the cowards we are fighting hide behind them, mix amongst them and use them as human shields. There are of course those civilian deaths that are unavoidable in war; it is an ugly fact. Add to that an enemy that has no concern for the people they claim to rule and the tragedy multiplies. How can one measure victory against such cruelty?
We measure it by showing the people of Afghanistan that we are not just going to pick up and leave them to deal with or, rather, be dealt with by their oppressors, newly empowered by our abandonment and hungry to reinforce their dominance through new horrors exacted upon an already horrified people.
We measure it by a dramatic change in the rules of engagement for this conflict. The so-called Karzai 12 rules, which state among other things that our troops cannot fire when civilians are present or unless the enemy is “preparing” to fire on them and that villages must be warned before a search, make it nearly impossible for our troops and the Afghan forces themselves, which the rules say must be present during all searches, to effectively defeat this ruthless mob of religious fanatics bent on jihad.
Just who is Commander in Chief for American forces? Hamid Karzai or Barrack Obama? I understand we are in their country, but it wouldn’t be theirs right now if not for us and our allies and if they want to keep it, they should worry less about cultural sensitivity and more about ridding themselves of those whose only real motivation is power, though they would have you believe them holy warriors.
The Afghan war is winnable, the goal is attainable; all we need is the will to achieve it and the political fortitude to do what we have to know is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama either doesn’t know it or hasn’t the political stomach for it and the people paying the price in blood are our troops and the Afghan people. Too late they are learning what those who fought against Obama’s election tried to warn us all about; this man cannot be trusted.
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