Posted on 05/28/2006 6:59:58 PM PDT by neverdem
TO most Americans, Afghanistan has been a war of great clarity, the opposite of the war in Iraq with all its troubles and cloudy origins. Attacking in a moment of unified anger, with global allies beside it, the United States had a clear mission: respond to an assault on American soil by driving Al Qaeda fighters from their bases in a country undeniably tied to the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001.
Victory over the Taliban government was swift, and the aftermath gratifying: Afghans welcomed American troops and aid workers, and seemed to settle into a pattern, however fitful and difficult, that would lead to recovery, stability and increasingly democratic government. And this summer Americans would start drawing down forces in southern Afghanistan, replaced by British, Canadian, Dutch and Australians under NATO command.
Or so Americans thought.
In the last six weeks, a resurgent Taliban has surprised the Americans with the ferocity of its annual spring offensive and set some officials here to worrying that the United States might become tied down in a prolonged battle as control slips away from the central government — in favor of the movement that harbored Al Qaeda before 2001. And the number of American troops has quietly risen, not fallen.
"Afghanistan is the sleeper crisis of this summer," says John J. Hamre, who was deputy defense secretary from 1997 to 1999.
Not only have officials been surprised by the breadth of the militants' presence and the brazenness of their suicide attacks, roadside bombings and assaults by large units. They have also had to face up to the formidable entrenched obstacles to transforming Afghan society: the deep rivalries among ethnic groups, warlords and tribal leaders; the history of civil war; the trouble central governments have in extending their writ beyond the capital; and the hostility...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
John J. Hamre, assistant SecDef during the Klintoon fiasco.
He has a lot of credibility, you betcha!
Leftwing kooks at NATO (New Yawk Slimes) hoping Afghanistan will somehow go downhill. Commies.
Defeatist glee.
Notice the complete absence of mention of the hundreds of dead terrorists.
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