NYT editorial: Losing the Good War: Afghanistan

Losing the Good War
Published: December 5, 2006

Afghanistan was supposed to be the good war — and the war America was winning. But because of the Bush administration’s inattention and mismanagement, even the good war is going wrong.

The latest grim news is that after years of effort — and more than $1 billion spent — Afghanistan’s American-trained police force is unable to perform even routine law enforcement work. According to an article in yesterday’s Times, investigators for the Pentagon and the State Department found that the training program’s managers did not even know how many police officers were serving, while thousands of trucks and other American-purchased police equipment have simply disappeared.

The failure to provide local security — or even a semblance of impartial justice — helps explain why so many Afghans have lost confidence in the pro-Western government of President Hamid Karzai, and why a growing number are again turning to the Taliban for protection. The failure to stand up an effective police force also helps explain why opium cultivation rose by nearly 60 percent this year....

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Mr. Bush’s decision to rush off to invade Iraq meant that Afghanistan would be shortchanged when it came to resources and to policy makers’ priority lists. The cost of that inattention can be seen in the failing Afghan police force. It can also be seen in the Taliban’s growing strength, the mounting death toll of Afghan civilians and NATO troops, and the unraveling of the Karzai government. So much for winning the good war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/opinion/05tue1.html?hp

Maybe W will finally see his legacy going down in flames and will let the military officers such as Murtha clean up the mess.

Ah yes. How easy the civilian deaths in Afghanistan become to ignore once all the progressives have decided that Iraq is worse. The Iraq war, with the 5-year half-life on its even-more-obviously-false rationales, managed to run delightful cover for the transnational oil pipeline in Afghanistan that may prove a bigger prize than even Saddam's former oil fields.

a problem here?????????/