Our NATO allies in Afghanistan are only now realizing the mess they got themselves into when they
agreed to take over America's peacekeeping roll in Afghanistan. British military officers are
not happy.
"The government is hiding the truth from the public," one senior officer said last week. "I am sure they believe that if Afghanistan turns sour it will bring down the prime minister.
"If they don't send more troops than the single battle-group that is going now, and allow them to do their job properly by giving them robust rules of engagement, then I can pretty much guarantee it will turn sour."
In a situation that is eerily similar to Rumsfeld overruling the military decisions of his generals, Britian's role in Afghanistan is being micromanaged from the other side of the world.
Commanders complain that John Reid, the defence secretary, has tried to prevent news of attacks coming out and that they cannot make even the most minor military decision without referring it to his office for approval.
[...]
The claim that the government is trying to micro-manage the Afghanistan operation to ensure that it does not threaten the prime minister's position is backed up by MoD civil servants.
"There is an arrogance and control-freak mentality that has resulted in the military hardly being able to move without the minister's team knowing about it and approving it first," one said.
British forces are not alone in realizing that the Afghan security situation is
beyond the control of any normal peacekeeping situation. On Saturday,
four Canadian soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing.
It's a troubling moment, that realization that what was supposed to be an exercise in nation-building is in reality a war: an honest-to-goodness guns and mortar fight to the finish. Over the past few weeks, with Canadian forces in southern Afghanistan under attack with startling regularity, soldiers of our Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry are wondering what exactly they are supposed to be doing.
"Someone dropped the ball," says one officer from the Patricias, requesting his name not be published.
The Dutch have also discovered that they've
kicked the tar baby.
The security situation in the Afghan province of Uruzgan has deteriorated considerably in recent months - that's what the Dutch foreign and defence ministers have told parliament on the basis of a report from the MIVD military intelligence service - and the Dutch military mission needs to be strengthened.
When Spring arrives in Afghanistan, the level of violence increases as the weather improves. However, Dutch military intelligence - the MIVD - concludes that the current upsurge in attacks and ambushes in Uruzgan is not only the result of Spring having arrived, the Taliban have also become better organised. The MIVD reports that their fighters now have modern weapons systems and new communications hardware, and they're sufficiently trained to use these items effectively.
All three of these allies went into Afghanistan despite opposition from Center-Left opposition parties (much like Italian and Australian participation in Iraq).
After so many years of fighting, and with the situation getting
more bloody each and every year, it seems rather obvious that bombing and killing isn't going to be the solution to the war in Afghanistan. The solution is going to be diplomacy, not military. However, American leaders are
Stuck On Stupid.
U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins ruled out coalition forces entering into dialogue with insurgents. He said the United States was instead supporting Afghanistan's legitimate government and the building of a new security force.
"We don't negotiate with terrorist organizations and the Taliban extremists have committed themselves to violence," Collins said.
After five years, the Afghan government still only controls
Kabul and its suburbs and nothing more. Meanwhile, the Taleban are
on the rise. The only change is that we are now sharing the burden of fighting a war that cannot be won with the current methods. Just another example of Bush spreading the misery around.
