The U.S. plan to send an additional 3,200 Marines to troubled southern Afghanistan this spring reflects the Pentagon's belief that if it can't bully its recalcitrant NATO allies into sending more troops to the Afghan front, perhaps it can shame them into doing so, U.S. officials said.
Wait, isn't this the war everyone is behind? We're after Osama and his henchmen, but I think people are starting to forget.
While Washington has long called for allies to send more forces, NATO countries involved in some of the fiercest fighting have complained that they are suffering the heaviest losses. The United States supplies about half of the 54,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, they say, but the British, Canadians and Dutch are engaged in regular combat in the volatile south.
"We have one-tenth of the troops and we do more fighting than you do," a Canadian official said of his country's 2,500 troops in Kandahar province. "So do the Dutch." The Canadian death rate, proportional to the overall size of its force, is higher than that of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or Iraq, a Canadian government analysis concluded last year.
British officials note that the eastern region, where most U.S. forces are based, is far quieter than the Taliban-saturated center of British operations in Helmand, the country's top opium-producing province. The American rejoinder, spoken only in private with references to British operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is that superior U.S. skills have made it so.
Is that necessarily true? Everyone likes to think of Americans as these bloodthirsty savages who kill indiscriminately, but is it possible that our tactics are so vastly different or executed so much better then everyone else's that we suffer fewer casualties and are able to pacify an area much easier? It certainly wouldn't surprise me as we have a very advance military with men and women who take their job extremely seriously.
But if Britain and other nations are having problems, why not simply say "Hey guys, we could use a hand over here"? I think that's what they've been doing and that's why the extra Marines are going to Afghanistan.
But what's troubling is the lack of support from the Canadians:
When Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier visited Washington late last month, he reminded Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Canada's Afghan mandate expires in January 2009. With most of the Canadian public opposed to a continued combat role, he said, it is not certain that Ottawa can sustain it.
So let me get this straight: You, the Canadian public, are opposed to a continued combat role against Al-Qaeda, in a war that everyone agreed should be fought?? If that's indeed true, I'm extremely disappointed with our northern neighbors. I thought we could count on Canada for help and support when it was needed. With them growing "tired" of being in Afghanistan, should the United States only offer conditional help when the Canadians need it?
You don't turn your back on your friends when they are attacked and need your help the most.
U.S. and British forces have long derided each other's counterinsurgency tactics. In Iraq, British commanders touted their successful "hearts and minds" efforts in Northern Ireland, tried to replicate them in southern Iraq, and criticized more heavy-handed U.S. operations in the north. Their U.S. counterparts say they are tired of hearing about Northern Ireland and point out that British troops largely did not quell sectarian violence in the south.
The same tensions have emerged in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials criticized what one called a "colonial" attitude that kept the British from retaining control over areas wrested from the Taliban. Disagreement leaked out publicly early last year when British troops withdrew from the Musa Qala district of Helmand after striking a deal with local tribal leaders. The tribal chiefs quickly relinquished control to the Taliban.
Well that is certainly a good example of the British's success as well as failures. What works in Northern Ireland may not work in Afghanistan.
This is the same nation that was having high level meetings with the Taliban to establish a truce. But what does the Taliban do? Why they bomb restaurants!
But things are looking better:
After 10 months of Taliban control, Musa Qala was retaken in December in combat involving British, Afghan and U.S. forces. The new Marine deployments will supplement British troops, and both sides insist they have calmed their differences. "Whatever may or may not have been said between the two in the past," said one British official, ". . . we are now in the same place."
So, should we ask the UN to help out? They certainly could use the boost in their reputation as an ineffectual, spineless, worthless organization:
The United States has pressed U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a high-level representative to coordinate non-military activities in Afghanistan. Karzai has resisted, and Ban is said to be worried about taking responsibility for what he sees as a worsening situation.
Oh good. When the UN thinks things are getting "bad", they want to turn tail and run until things get "better", then they can come in and have a little PR event.
I honestly don't see the point of having a "peacekeeping" force with the UN if they don't KEEP THE PEACE!
Sometimes you wonder what people are thinking when they do dumb things.
Travis
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