Recent events in the two wars still being fought by the United States are not good news despite the change of policies in Washington. The seven year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is now the longest war ever engaged in by the US, including Vietnam which is usually measured from the first commitment of ground forces in country. The general commanding US forces in Afghanistan was essentially fired by his civilian bosses, the first time that has happened since Harry Truman relieved the egotistical and radical Douglas MacArthur in Korea. The change of command reflects the worsening situation. The Taliban militia controls the northeast of the country, and the porous Pashtun controlled border between Pakistan and Afghanistan allows the largely Pashtun militia force to rest, recruit and re-equip at will. The US has predictably resorted to large air strikes to counterbalance their tactical disadvantage on the ground, only to kill large numbers of civilians. A recent strike killed about 130 Afghans. Incidents like these further alienates the population from the western invaders. The fact that the Taliban, defeated in three months of conventional operations at the start of the war, was able to resurrect shows that the US has failed to apply consistently the lessons of counterinsurgency once learned the hard way in the jungles of Vietnam. It established a weak, corrupt central government, but failed to win over conservative rural tribal leaders or control territory with troops on the ground. Recently 17,000 additional US troops have been sent bringing the total to 55,000 Americans and 37,000 allied forces. During their failed ten year war to subdue Islamic fundamentalists, the Soviet Union committed about 80,000 to 100,000 troops to the conflict at any one time. But old Soviet hands are skeptical that simply applying more troops is the answer to winning the war. As one Soviet general observed in the notes of a Politburo meeting, "After seven years in Afghanistan, there is not one square kilometer left untouched by a boot of a Soviet soldier. But as soon as they leave a place, the enemy returns and restores it all back the way it used to be."[1]The other war in Iraq has taken second place in the thinking of the current administration since announcing its intention to end combat operations there by 2010. Despite the political de-emphasis Americans continue to die in Iraq, some at the hands of their deranged comrades in arms. A soldier on his third tour of duty in Iraq opened fire while at a stress clinic in Camp Liberty near the Baghdad airport. He killed five after taking a weapon away from an escort and an unpleasant verbal exchange with the clinic staff. He was arrested and charged with murder. The latest bombing in the still chaotic country killed fifteen in a Baghdad marketplace. A string of deadly bombings have renewed fears that Iraqis are still incapable of policing themselves when American forces leave.
[photo: the "Valley of death", Korengal, Time]
[photo: the "Valley of death", Korengal, Time]
[1]www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB272/index.htm, an online database of previously secret Politburo notes and diaries concerning Afghanistan. Remarks attributed to General Akhromeyev during a November 1986 meeting of the Politburo.