Those events began with the inexplicable decision byofficials of the previous administration to allow Osama bin Laden, Aymanal-Zawahiri and other ranking leaders of Al Qaeda to escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan in December 2001. At thetime, as a new Senate report on the battle of Tora Bora recalls, DonaldRumsfeld, the secretary of defense, and Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander ofAmerican forces in Afghanistan, decided not to augment the tiny contingent ofspecial operations troops on the ground with sufficient force to capture orkill bin Laden and his deputies. They later claimed to be worried that"too many U.S. troopsin Afghanistanwould create an anti-American backlash and fuel a widespread insurgency,"a rationale that can only evoke bitter laughter now.
None of the reasons offered back then for inactionat Tora Bora made sense after the outrage of Sept. 11, when the entire world,including the Afghan people, were cheering the U.S. invasion. The pattern ofdeception that later led to war in Iraq began with expressions of doubt by bothFranks and Vice President Dick Cheney about bin Laden's presence in Tora Boraadoubt that none of the commanders on the ground shared and that always soundedmore like an excuse than an explanation. If there was any chance that theperpetrators of Sept. 11 could be found in those mountains, then maximum forceshould have been deployed as rapidly as possible.
Obsession With Iraq Led to Afghan Insurgency
What we know now, of course, is that Cheney,Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush himself were distracted from the vitalnecessity of victory in Afghanistanwhichmeant not only driving out the Taliban but installing a real government intheir placeby their obsession with Iraq. Not only did the Al Qaedaleadership escape, but so did Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, whoreturned to mount a threatening insurgency two years later, just as the BushWhite House and the Pentagon were declaring "mission accomplished" inBaghdad.
The resulting neglect of Afghanistanwith all thecorruption, disillusionment and anger that has ensuedhad reached a criticalstage when the Bush administration finally departed. Their own commanders wereleft behind to warn the new president that after eight years of war, the enemyhad gained the upper hand.
No further recrimination is necessaryhistory willrender sterner judgments than any that can be written now. But after eightyears of incompetence and arrogance, how can the United States salvage what hasbecome of the "good war"?
Escalation appears to be a self-defeating strategy.If the secretary of defense worried in 2001 that a few thousand Americans inTora Bora would enrage the Afghan population, how will that population react tothe presence of nearly 200,000 foreign troops next year? The U.S. occupation of Afghanistanfurther inflames suspicions of American domination not only in that country butacross the Muslim worldas the war in Iraqalso didand especially in strategically vulnerable Pakistan.
As investigative reporter Aram Roston recentlyrevealed in a cover story for The Nation,the Afghan countryside is already so deeply permeated by the Taliban thatcontractors shipping logistical supplies to our troops routinely bribe theenemy to allow safe passage. Military sources estimated that the payoffsamounted to as much as 10% of the cash value of those shipments. So if we spendanother $30 billion a year to send in additional troops, roughly $3 billionwill end up in the coffers of the Taliban, far more than they need to buy theammunition and explosives that kill our soldiers.
The president seems to recognize the futility of thecurrent situation. Perhaps he is raising the ante in order to bring the Talibanto the negotiating table, the same objective apparently shared by our allies inEurope and the discredited government in Afghanistan. Unsatisfactory as thatwould be, it is a legacy of the same politicians who now urge our troops tomarch resolutely into the deadly mess they made.
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