Don’t forget Afghanistan
Civilian deaths have doubled over the last two years in Afghanistan. The British tried to succeed in Afghanistan but failed in 1947. The Soviet Union tried to conquer the Mujahadeen ‘freedom fighters’ and failed. But President-elect Barak Obama intends to make sure the US doesn’t follow the same fate by taking a dramatic strategic shift from President George W. Bush.
Military advisers to Obama support dropping ideological barriers and creating dialogue with Iran about Afghanistan, according to sources reporting to The Washington Post. Obama would be taking a more regional approach to the war and also plans to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and put new resistance to al-Qaida and tribal areas neighboring Pakistan.
PBS’s Frontline released an excellent documentary, The War Briefing, describing the current situation in Afghanistan and the area, presenting all the factors and all their complexities.
The argued doctrine for winning the war in Afghanistan begins by winning the hearts and minds of afghans before the insurgency does. But this is proving to be quite difficult, according to the PBS report.
In order to win the Afghans over, it requires resources and troops. There is a huge competition with the Taliban to win over the Afghans before the U.S does. But they have an advantage—they are able to use not only resources, but also deadly force.
“The only way the insurgency can be compromised and the only way the Taliban can be subdued, in the long run, is to change the conditions in which they thrive, said Steve Coll in The War Briefing. “That is daunting, and by any realistic measure, long term project.”
Watch the full documentary.