The Washington Post reports that:
"U.S. forces in Afghanistan suffered the deadliest day of the decade-long war Saturday when insurgents shot down an American helicopter, killing 30 U.S. servicemen and eight Afghans in the latest of a series of setbacks for coalition forces whose numbers are set to decline over the coming months.I have written several articles opposing the war in Afghanistan. This latest tragedy is a shocking reminder that U.S. has failed to accomplish many of its key objectives after 10 years of war. It is time to bring the troops home.
As U.S. troops have pushed the Taliban from havens in the south, the insurgents have retaliated in recent weeks with high-profile attacks and assassinations of Afghan officials. The incidents have challenged U.S. assertions that the military is making steady progress in preparation for turning control of the country over to its Afghan partners. Insurgents have also stepped up attacks in the mountainous east, the site of Saturday’s incident.
The dead in Saturday’s attack included 22 Navy SEALs, most of them members of SEAL Team 6, the counterterrorism unit that carried out the mission to find Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said. They added that none of the commandos who died Saturday were involved in the cross-border mission that killed the al-Qaeda leader."
This article is cross-posted on Jack and Jill Politics.
The time to leave Afghanistan was right around Tora Bora. It was then that Bush's decision to look past the job at hand, and at Iraq sealed the fate of our efforts in the graveyard of empires. Three more years of Bushite incompetence left the new President in an impossible situation. But Obama talked himself into a corner by casting Afghanistan as "the good war" instead of the unwinnable mess it had become.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the President is going to withdraw from Afghanistan even after reelection. He needs the fig leaf of Afghanistan to pursue the real conflict in Pakistan. The real war is in the border badlands of Afghanistan-Pakistan; Afghanistan itself is a sideshow.
You raise a good point. Al Qaeda has essentially been defeated in Afghanistan. The fact that Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan speaks volumes. Several Al Qaeda leaders are probably hiding in Pakistan. There are Al Qaeda operatives in many countries such as Yemen. The solution to the problem cannot be invasion and occupation of several countries. There has to be a better way.
ReplyDeleteAnson Asaka