The US & NATO goal is to stablize Afghanistan so that they can focus on the other important issues. No matter what the outcome of the current election in Afghanistan, the task would be difficult for a stable Afghanistan or even to create the atmosphere where we were just after 9/11 during Afghanistan invasion.
Neither Dr. Abdullah Abdullah nor Karzai can be the solution to Afghanistan stability as a standalone entity, but a complete transformation of government culture where corruption issues have been given the most priorit in the next months and years to come.
Any decision that the US makes on Afghanistan today, it will have the most effect to 2012 election outcome. Unlike the campaign slogan where we build from bottom up in the US, it needs to be built from Top to Bottom in Afghanistan. It will be difficulet, but any difficult task has its risk. Obviously, with the risk comes its award!
We understand that the financial crises have changed the focus from Iraq/Afghanistan to our kitchen table, but let's not forget that it takes a leader with a steady and consistent judgement to take us from this or any other crise. If we want to win the war in terror, we need to re-evaluate our strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.We can do it in a smart way witout extending the same policy of the past 8 years that has failed, and instead of allianating the rest of the world! The article below is another example that the US surge in Iraq is an Al Qaida surge in Afghanistan where the end result is... you got it.
"By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. military successes in Iraq have forced sophisticated and well-trained insurgents to pour into Afghanistan instead, the Afghan defense minister said Tuesday.
In a demonstration of the increasingly deadly attacks unleashed by militants, a roadside bomb exploded near a civilian taxi packed with passengers, killing nine Afghans, including two children, a provincial police chief said.
The defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, said terrorists who would have once fought in Iraq have been "diverted" to Afghanistan.
"The success of coalition forces in Iraq and also some other issues in some of the neighboring countries have made it possible that there is a major increase in the foreign fighters," Wardak told a news conference. "There is no doubt that they are (better) equipped than before. They are well trained, more sophisticated, their coordination is much better."
The top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, told The Associated Press last month that he is seeing a spike in the number of foreign militants — including Arabs and Chechens — flowing into Afghanistan. He said militant Web sites have been encouraging fighters to go to Afghanistan instead of Iraq.
"I can't prove they are coming from Iraq to Afghanistan, but I've seen it on Web sites that that's what they're being told to do," Schloesser said.
The bomb attack that killed nine Afghan civilians was apparently intended to hit NATO troops, said Juma Gul Himat, the provincial police chief in Uruzgan province.
Himat blamed the Taliban for the attack and said the road where the bomb exploded is often used by NATO troops. The taxi had been traveling toward the provincial capital.
Most bomb attacks in Afghanistan target Afghan or NATO soldiers, but the blasts are far more likely to kill ordinary civilians.
Violence has risen steadily in Afghanistan since late 2005. More than 4,700 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency related-violence this year, according to an Associated Press count of figured provided by Afghan and Western officials.
U.S.-led troops killed five insurgents in central Ghazni province on Monday during a raid to disrupt a foreign fighter network, the coalition said Tuesday.
The coalition also said one of its service members was killed and several others were wounded in southern Afghanistan on Monday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. No other information, including the service members' nationalities or precise location of the attack, was released."
It has become obvious now that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq in first place and stayed in focus in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the real threat was and still is. As the situation gets worse in Afghanistan and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the International Security Force (NATO) and the US have realized that the focus should be put back in that region.
Sometimes I am trying to understand why we changed our focus from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Iraq when we knew that that terrorists are getting their trainings from Afghanistan/Pakistan area, receive their educations from the schools (madrassas) in Pakistan, mostly mobilized in Pakistan/Afghanistan, the leadership of the terrorists hang out around those borderless area, attack the US bases and Nato forces inside Afghanistan, and much more... but we still decided NOT to focus in that area instead we have created another recruiting center in Iraq- it simply doesn't make sense.
Refocusing in Afghanistan and Pakistan may not be as easy ride as we had the opportunity after we drove the Taliban (Afghan/Pakistani extremist, ISI Influence, and Al Qaida group) out of Afghanistan. We may even need much more resources and greater support of the NATO to get us just where we were 6 years ago in Afghanistan. As our attention was in Iraq, the so called "democratic elected Afghan government", has been transformed to a corrupt entity that has lost the support of its people and the "hope" of a better tomorrow is getting deminished in Afghanistan. We have lost the support and the excitement that we had generated among the Afghan people after the defeat of Taliban and Al Qaida six years ago, but we have no other option than focusing back in a region where the terrorist initially planned and attacked us on 9/11.
I believe strongly that Barack Obama has a better idea on keeping us safe. He has repeatedly requested that we should focus in Afghanistan and Pakistan and send more troops in Afghanistan.He will focus in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the real threat was and still is when he is the President of the United States of America.
"The bombing comes one day after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told his counterparts in Europe that for the first time, the monthly total of American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan exceeded the toll in Iraq during May."
We need to realize that the real war is still in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the terrorists are trained, educated, and mobilized. As Barack Obama believes, we need to focus in Afghanistan and Pakistan and bring our troops back from Iraq. Iraq war shouldn't be be waged in the first place!
Maybe it is time to visit Afghanistan instead of Iraq to see the situation from close!
Read the AP article!
We had an opportunity after invading Afghanistan to finish the job there. Instead of focusing on the root of the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we invaded Iraq and created a new terrorist recruiting center there.
