SubscribeNY Times: Afghanistan Is As Doomed As Iraq
From the "Paper Of Treason," the New York Times:
Canadian Forces soldiers during combat operations west of Kandahar. One Canadian soldier was killed by friendly fire and several were wounded on Monday during a major offensive to crush a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
Afghan Symbol for Change Becomes a Symbol of Failure
By DAVID ROHDE
September 5, 2006On a July morning, Taliban gunmen shot dead the province’s most powerful cleric as he walked to the main city mosque to lead morning prayers. Five months later, they executed a teacher at a nearby village school as students watched. The following month, they walked into another mosque and gunned down an Afghan engineer working for a foreign aid group, shooting him in the back as he pressed his forehead to the ground and supplicated to God.
This spring and summer, the slow and methodical siege of this southern provincial capital intensified. The Taliban and their allies set up road checkpoints, burned 20 trucks and slowed the flow of supplies to reconstruction projects. All told, in surrounding Helmand Province, five teachers, one judge and scores of police officers have been killed. Dozens of schools and courts have been shuttered, according to Afghan officials.
“Our government is weak,” said Fowzea Olomi, a local women’s rights advocate whose driver was shot dead in May and who fears she is next. “Anarchy has come.”
When the Taliban fell nearly five years ago, Lashkar Gah seemed like fertile ground for the United States-led effort to stabilize the country. For 30 years during the cold war, Americans carried out the largest development project in Afghanistan’s history here, building a modern capital with suburban-style tract homes, a giant hydroelectric dam and 300 miles of canals that made 250,000 acres of desert bloom. Afghans called this city “Little America.”
Today, Little America is the epicenter of a Taliban resurgence and an explosion in drug cultivation that has claimed the lives of 106 American and NATO soldiers this year and doubled American casualty rates countrywide. Across Afghanistan, roadside bomb attacks are up by 30 percent; suicide bombings have doubled. Statistically it is now nearly as dangerous to serve as an American soldier in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq.
Helmand’s descent symbolizes how Afghanistan has evolved since the initial victory over the Taliban into one of the most troubled fronts in the fight against terrorism.
The problems began in early 2002, former Bush administration, United Nations and Afghan officials said, when the United States and its allies failed to take advantage of a sweeping desire among Afghans for help from foreign countries…
Gosh, the incredible irony of a place called "Little America" still having problems.
What a devastating report from the New York Times, who have long contended that the people of the Middle East are too congenitally backward to ever be able to have a representative form of government elected by its citizenry.
And now we learn that if only the Afghanis could have had the benefits of French leadership for the last four years everything would be hunky dory.
But aren't NATO forces replacing the US ground troops in Afghanistan?
Not to mention the fact that the British have been the major military force in that province since January, according to Wikipedia:
Helmand Province
It was announced on January 27, 2006 in the British Parliament that a NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would be replacing the U.S troops in the province as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. The British 16th Air Assault Brigade would be the core of the force in Helmand Province. British bases are located in the towns of Sangin, Lashkar Gah and Gerishk.
British troops from 3 Para board a Chinook helicopter at the end of an operation to secure the village of Musakala in Helmand province, August 6, 2006.
The Afghanis must regret missing out on all the raping and general corruption they could enjoy under those heroic UN peace-keepers.
Or maybe they realize the UN worthies would allow them to resume their drug trade as long as they got a cut.
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13 Responses to “NY Times: Afghanistan Is As Doomed As Iraq”
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September 5th, 2006 at 4:18 am
well no mention about the un usa troops in bosnia? cosovo?
“Statistically it is now nearly as dangerous to serve as an American soldier in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq.” so iraq’s getting better, but afganistan is getting worse with troops other than USA taking the lead. this sort of makes the DNC a LIAR on Iraq, and the DNC a LIAR on “we are going it alone”.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:58 am
New York City is doomed too. The NYT just doesn’t want to mention that because they are doing their best to help facilitate it’s destruction.
September 5th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
As Yogi would say “this is like deja vu all over again”.
Rush Limbaugh pointed out that this is not the first time the NY Times was wrong on post war occupation (link -
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ho.....guest.html ) and Life Magazine did its’ share of “America
Is The Cause Of The Misery” too (link - http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ho.....guest.html
) .
But who are you going to believe - the NY Times and the MSM or historical facts?
September 5th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I’m sure there is more killing than is mentioned in the article but they only cite 10 murders (specifically and “scores” of others mentioned but very vague)? Sounds pretty safe to me. One of my Persian friends was discussing a very large dam in Afganistan that had taken water from Iran that the Taliban had been freely giving them. Hmmmmm…Interesting. Might be why they are a little testy over there. They got to boss around the Taliban and no more.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
The NYT and other Taliban cheerleaders love pointing out that the Taliban has become more active as of late. What they fail to mention is that the increase in fighting isn’t because they’ve found new recruits or found new hope, but for the simple fact that NATO forces have been gradually forcing them into a corner.
Recently, Operation Medusa was launched. This was spearheaded by Canadian troops. At the end of the day, the score was:
Taliban: 4
Canada: 200 (plus 70 or so prisoners).
Gawd…we’re doomed !
September 5th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
I noticed the ass kicking the Canadians were handing the Taliban DW….it made me proud! What astounds me is the actual reporting of terrorist casualties. If you read the MSM, the terrorists have lost about sixteen people in the past three years…and everyone else is close to a million. Yes, the taliwackers are going to be annihilated…killed in their corners by people who watch the United States being handcuffed by their own Democratic Congressmen and Activist Judges…but the arent under any such restrictions. They will make up for lost time. In spades. Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee….hahahaha! I hope the next report is Taliban 0, Canada 123,458 and no prisoners.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Hey SJ, just to add icing to the cake -those Canadians who did the fighting -they’ve been in-country for about 3 weeks.
I guess there’s a bit of a difference between sawing the heads off of handcuffed prisoners, or stoning women to death -and fighting against someone that can fight back.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Canada has always produced high-quality soldiers. Now they may have a defense budget that is commensurate with their needs.
September 5th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Good job Canada…..
September 5th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Having worked closely with Canadian soilders, I can vouch for their tenacious good-sense and bravery. I would again fight along-side any Canadian troop.
Here’s to their continued good fight: May you continue to destroy the enemy, demolish any safe-haven, overpower any resistance, and plant freedom whereever you pass.
“That Others May Live”,
Arctain
September 6th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Thanks for the kind words guys.
It’s funny how our troops were sent there by a Liberal (Jean Cretien),
The mission was extended by a Liberal (Paul Martin),
A Conservative (Stephen Harper) gets voted into office and all we hear now from the Libs is that we need an “exit-strategy” and how PM Harper is just a “Bush puppet” for sending troops to Afghanistan.
Harper finally got annoyed enough call a vote in Parliament on extending the mission even further and dared the Libs, the NDP and the Bloc to vote against it (which would have resulted in another election). Needless to say, they knew they’d lose an election, so they voted to keep our guys in harm’s way. Then immediately went back to screeching about Harper being a warmonger.
Remember -every time you flush your toilet, you’re getting rid of something that has more courage and morality than most leftists.
September 6th, 2006 at 11:49 am
‘“Our government is weak,” said Fowzea Olomi, a local women’s rights advocate. . .” Typical left crap - never acknowledge that the speaker under the previous government would not exist, just that she is complaining about the current situation.
I guess that these morons are as stupid as they think most Americans are - to put a remark like that in and not realize that most of us would not figure it out.
Just like their statistics on violence/killing, always been skewed to their own unreality. Washington D.C. is the worst place in America if you are an infant (highest infant mortality rate in the US) and their murder rate . . .well as you know the infamous ‘it would be a great city if it weren’t for the crime statistics’ You can not take one variable without looking at the whole picture and all the other variables. It just isn’t sound reporting, research, logical - nothing of value.
Which sums up the msm of late.
September 7th, 2006 at 2:16 am
nyt afganistan is doomed, too bad NATO and Afganistan say different!
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WO.....index.html
NATO: We have Taliban cornered
POSTED: 0955 GMT (1755 HKT), September 5, 2006
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) — NATO said on Tuesday its major offensive to crush a revitalized Taliban in southern Afghanistan is pushing the guerrillas into a corner as heavy fighting continues.
“We are closing the circle on the Taliban — we have got the Taliban in a bit of a trap,” NATO spokesman Major Quentin Innes said.
Last weekend NATO launched Operation Medusa, its biggest ground offensive against an increasingly active Taliban, in Kandahar province, the hardline Islamist group’s spiritual heartland.
The operation is focused on Panjwai district, near the capital, Kandahar city, and is being supported by air strikes.
Panjwai has been the scene of a series of operations by Afghan and foreign forces this year. Several thousand civilians have fled in the face of previous battles and residents say many have died in the latest fighting.
Medusa was launched after NATO forces encountered stiffer-than-expected Taliban resistance as it took over the south from U.S.-led troops, the alliance’s biggest-ever ground operation.
Casualties have been high. NATO says it has killed more than 200 guerrillas, a claim the Taliban disputes. At least five Canadian soldiers have died in combat and 14 British troops were killed when their plane crashed early in the offensive.
A Taliban spokesman said civilians had also been killed in the operation but Innes had no reports of civilian casualties.
But resident Mohammad Giran said civilians had taken the brunt of the death toll and accused NATO and Afghan troops of firing indiscriminately.
“Bombings happen day and night,” Giran told Reuters by mobile phone from Panjwai. “If one Taliban dies, three civilians also get killed. In the past four days, 10 of my relatives have been martyred,
“The joint forces fire upon any one without making sure if he is a Talib or not. I think 20 Taliban may have been killed, the rest are all innocent civilians.”
Taliban military chief Mullah Dadullah has threatened to target journalists spreading NATO propaganda. The Taliban says its casualties number barely a dozen.
Fighting across Afghanistan is the worst since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001.
More than 2,000 people, most of them militants, along with scores of civilians and aid workers and hundreds of Afghan security personnel, have been killed so far this year. More than 115 foreign troops have died.
NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Richards, has described Medusa as a pivotal campaign in putting down the Taliban to allow vital reconstruction and development.