Right war, wrong tactics

[cal04]

Oh what a paradoxical war. Five years ago this week, the world - including all the Muslim members of the United Nations - came together to support the removal by force of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Today, most countries in the world have reneged on their promise to the people of Afghanistan to see that task through. Britain is one of the few nations that has made its commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan as a free country more than mere rhetoric. Yet that commitment no longer commands the support of public opinion in Britain. Tony Blair deserves some credit for stepping up the British deployment in southern Afghanistan at the beginning of this year. But that credit is more than wiped out by his failings.

The effort to rebuild Afghanistan has been fatally undermined by the disaster of the Iraq war. First, Iraq was a distraction from the sustained attention that Afghanistan required. The 5,000 British troops deployed this year should have been sent long ago - the main reason that they were not was because they were needed in Iraq. Now that they have been sent, they are too few, too unprepared, and possibly too late. The worst examples of British forces lacking the right equipment may have been rectified, but it remains the case that the military chiefs have not been given the numbers of troops required to do the job. As we report today, John Reid, when he was defence secretary, ignored the warning of his service chiefs that the numbers being sent to Afghanistan were insufficient for the task.



http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article1777735.ece

[bullimiami]

1. the problem is intention.

bush(co) never cared about the people of afghanistan. they were perfectly willing to keep the taliban and all of their oppression if they would just play ball (carpet of gold or carpet of bombs). they would not.

they attacked afghanistan for revenge and business. they installed karzai (unocal) and got their business interests in place (pipeline) and left the people to fend for themselves.

afghanistan was never the right war.

[Skittles]

2. THANK YOU

it sickens me how many people buy the notion that Afghanistan is the "good" war