Over the course of the past two years, we've seen a rapid shift in the affairs of the two wars America is currently invested in. In Iraq, there's been a substantial improvement in security, stability, and governance, and a marked decline in the attrition rate of our soldiers deployed to ensure the freedom of the Iraqis there. In Afghanistan, after a massive invasion of Pakistani territory by a branch of the Taliban and an increase of their attacks deep into Afghan population centers, we've witnessed the slow unraveling of eight years of progress.
In the development of these events, we've looked to Washington for a signal on the "Afghanistan Issue," as it has started to be called. We've placed our hopes in our president that he would lead our country to victory in that theater of war, which by all accounts is the single most important front in our effort secure the free world from the spectre of terrorism. As of this moment, we've started to receive signals, but not the ones we've been expecting.
Indeed, it has come to light on Thursday from a source within the administration that the current war effort in the country of Afghanistan is being redefined. The focus is shifting from fighting Al Qaeda and it's Taliban backers, to ignoring the Taliban and sustaining attacks against the Al Qaeda leadership itself.
According to an Associated Press report, the administration would be willing to cede Afghan territory to Taliban forces to facilitate this shift in objectives and conducting a purely defensive campaign within Afghanistan itself.
The AP report indicates the Administration is of the opinion that the links between the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces are minimal, and that they are not ideologically linked. How they received this level of intelligence from the impenetrable mountains of the Hindu Kush, on the other hand, is something I'm sure the best in the intelligence community would want to discover.
In any case, this report is incredible. It states that, perhaps, the organization that has killed eight hundred of our men and women in battle isn't an enemy at all. It states that the administration is now considering a coexistence with this organization, regardless of the battles this group has fought to protect Al Qaeda, which it harbored within its borders since it seized power in 1996. In addition to those crimes, the Taliban has since waged a campaign of terror on the Afghan citizenry, killing and persecuting ethnic minorities, marginalizing, stoning, and beating women, and curtailing education that does not fit within their theocratic guidelines.
It was the Taliban that accepted a certain Saudi - Osama Bin Laden - and his entourage into Afghanistan, furnished his organization with land for camps, protected his organization from international scrutiny, and refused to hand him over after 9/11. It was the Taliban that fought to defend Al Qaeda during the American campaign to capture or kill the terror mastermind and his cronies.
And now our government intends to give the Taliban quarter within Afghanistan, unmolested.
Surely history should be a guide to our conduct of our affairs in this region. The Soviet Union once allowed insurgents to control the country side, while maintaining their defensive positions in major metropolitan centers. The Russians expected that periodic offensives into areas like the Panjsher valley would act to cripple the resistance and destroy the enemy. For years they continued this strategy, until their tanks and helicopters could no longer hold back the tide of Afghan wrath.
So it seems the outcome of the administration's new tact on Afghanistan has already been played out. If we give the Taliban an unmolested foothold in Afghan or Pakistani territory, they would have a base of operations to recruit and mass armies to strike back and kill American servicemen and women, and our NATO and Afghan allies. This outcome is utterly unacceptable to the American public.\nEight years ago I watched every moment of the 9/11 attacks on my family's living room TV set. I watched what the Taliban did to protect the perpetrators of those heinous acts. It would be only a few more years later that my brother would go to war in the service of his country in Iraq, like many others that had already done so in Afghanistan. And our soldiers will continue to do their duty to their country, wherever duty calls them.
My wish is simply that our leadership will guide them wisely, and that their suffering and sacrifice would not be in vain.\n\nStephen Alexander\nSEAS III
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