– AFGHAN CONFUSION

 

Just three weeks ago the White House said, on Monday 08/10/2009, that President Barack Obama has a “Winning Strategy” in Afghanistan and enough forces on the ground to achieve USA goals despite advances by the Taliban. “The president’s strategy hasn’t fully been implemented just yet” – spokesman Bill Burton said.

 

The assurances came as the top USA commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was nominated on 05/10/2009, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published few hours earlier, that after eight years of war in Afghanistan the Taliban were gaining momentum.

 

The gloomy assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, by top military commanders continued when Admiral Mullen, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union television show, on Sunday 08/23/2009, said: “I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I’ve said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated in their tactics” (see – Mullen Assessment).

 

But despite the boasting of the White House that President Barack Obama has already a “winning” strategy in Afghanistan and enough forces on the ground to achieve USA goals – Gen. Stanley McChrystal filed his official report on Afghanistan only as late as on 08/31/2009.

 

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has called, in his report, for a revised military strategy, suggesting the current one is failing, and said that, while the Afghan situation was serious, success was still achievable. Gen McChrystal’s blunt assessment claims that the Afghan people are undergoing a crisis of confidence because the war against the Taliban has not made their lives better. Copies of the document have been sent to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and USA Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

 

Meanwhile the independent Electoral Complaints Commission says that of more than 2,100 allegations of wrongdoing during voting and vote-counting, 618 have been deemed serious enough to affect the recent 08/20/2009 election’s outcome, if proven (see – Afghan 09 Elections).

 

USA boasting of having a “winning” strategy in Afghanistan was way premature. USA and its allies admitted that almost eight years of war, wasting of resources on an unimaginable scale in Afghanistan, about 1,293 coalition deaths and dozens of thousands Afghani people killed, about 40% of them uninvolved, the war gained very little.

 

The political international attitude toward terror al over the world changed dramatically over the last eight years since The 9/11. Police, intelligence agencies and countries learned to cooperate, to coordinate and to share information about terror threats. Special laws were legislated in most of the Western Democracies to cope with terror and special training program for military and police anti-terror units all over the world were conducted. The world is no longer breached to terror as it was eight years ago.

 

Military and intelligence cooperation with countries like Pakistan and the Central Asian republics can contain easily and with a low coast the possible threat from lawless Afghanistan.  

 

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