Everything's Great in Afghanistan

December 8, 2004

I feel that these two paragraphs paint a nice picture of the fallacy our leaders are trying to project (from this article):

"We gather to mark a historic moment in the life of the nation and in the history of human freedom," Cheney said at a news conference with Karzai beforehand on the grounds of the presidential palace, a turreted stone structure set against distant, snow-dusted mountains. "Now the tyranny is gone, the terrorist enemy is scattered and the people of Afghanistan are free."

Security for the inauguration was heavy even by the standards of this dust-caked, militarized city. Major roads were closed, U.S.-led multinational troops patrolled on foot and in armored vehicles, and sharpshooters with telescopic sights manned rooftops while helicopters whirred overhead. There are 16,000 U.S. combat troops in the country, according to the Pentagon. NATO oversees 8,500 multinational troops providing security.

As significant as it is that they pulled off an election, the country is hardly free. From what I've read, the Taliban has essentially taken over the countryside, leaving Karzai to be mayor of Kabul. We should have directed all our energies to Afghanistan from the time we invaded, instead of the Iraq fiasco. Now, we're stuck in a halfway hell in both countries.