From the New York Times:
KABUL, Afghanistan, July 13 — Taliban insurgents mounted a large-scale attack on an American forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of Sunday, the senior NATO commander in the country said.
Fierce fighting in the area, which continued through the day, left nine American soldiers dead, making the Taliban assault the single deadliest attack on Americans in Afghanistan in several years, the Associated Press reported.
Remember the Taliban? Remember Osama bin Laden? The war we started and didn't finish against those in a country in which the terrorists were being trained, the war that we turned away from because we rushed to invade Iraq, which had not harmed us in any way, is now coming back to haunt us with rising numbers of dead and wounded troops.
The violence in 2008 was certainly greater than in the same period in 2007, and 2007 was worse than 2006, he said. NATO officials have said that attacks on its forces have increased by 40 percent from the same period last year.
So much for cheery words about things getting better all the time in Afghanistan.
General McKiernan said that militant insurgents are firing almost daily across the border from Pakistan at Afghan, American and NATO military border posts. Those attacks are a main factor in the sharp increase in combat violence in Afghanistan in the last few months, he said.
But...but...but Pakistan is our friend! And they have the bomb! And we're not threatening to attack them. I pray we don't, for with the rising bellicosity of the threats against Iran, we could be engaged in three wars, and we cannot manage wars in three countries at this time, much less four. Our troops can't do what we ask of them now. They are worn out and stressed out already, and it would be heaping abuse upon abuse to ask them to do more. I wonder if the war-mongering folks in the Bush maladministration understand that. I doubt it. And what about the top people in the Pentagon? Where are their voices?
God help us all!
George W Bush's legacy of virtually cutting and running from Afghanistan in order to have his oil war in Iraq now comes home to roost. There are no good answers left, so many horribly tragic decisions having been made.
ReplyDeleteI mourn the troops, I pray for the people of Afghanistan, I fervently pray we do not make matters worse than they already are (i.e., Bush's war on Iran, which I fully expect to be launched shortly before the election).
Paul, thank you.
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