Afghanistan: The Forgotten War

Part of the downfall of the Soviet Union can be traced to its war in Afghanistan. The US supported the Afghans but when the Russians went home, Afghanistan was neglected by both Reagan and the first President Bush, both who had been strong allies of the country. Clinton didn't do much either though that was several years later. In the 90s, the rise of the Taliban had much to do with the chaos and ruin in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union left as well as the failure of the world, including the US, to help Afghanistan deal with the consequences of ten years of war and then more years of civil war.

If Bush were really concerned about democracy, much more should have been done in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Instead, Bush decided Iraq would be the cornerstone of his democracy project and Afghanistan got put on the back burner. The results of democracy in either country has not been good.

Amitabh Pal of The Progressive explains the effect of the Iraq War on Afghanistan:

Things have been going downhill in Afghanistan for the last many months, as Christian Parenti documents in the March 27 issue of The Nation.

“Taliban attacks are up; their tactics have become more aggressive and nihilistic,” he writes. “They have detonated at least twenty-three suicide bombs in the past six months, killing foreign and Afghan troops, a Canadian diplomat, local police and in some cases crowds of civilians. Kidnapping is on the rise. American contractors are being targeted. Some 200 schools have been burned or closed down.”

Part of the reason for the May 29 rioting is rage at the heavy-handed approach of the U.S. armed forces. Parenti documents in his piece the differing styles of the U.S. and the European forces in Afghanistan, with the Europeans’ community-policing tactics in contrast to the U.S. hard-edged approach.

(snip)

The Bush Administration’s short attention span—refocused on Iraq—has thus been one of the main causes of Afghanistan’s difficulties.

Ahmed Rashid, author of a classic book on the Taliban, spells out the reasons for Afghanistan’s predicament in a recent BBC column. At the top of his list is the U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan due to the Iraq mess.

“Washington's refusal to take state building in Afghanistan seriously after 2001 and instead waging a fruitless war in Iraq created a major international distraction which the Taliban took advantage of to slowly rebuild their forces,” Rashid writes. “US-led coalition forces were never deployed in southern Afghanistan in sufficient numbers, even though this was the Taliban heartland and needed to be secured.” Plus, bad security conditions—coupled with the West’s inattention—have devastated the economic situation in the country.

History will not be kind to George W. Bush. Did I mention that Osama bin Laden is still loose?