Afghanistan: Mission not yet accomplished
It has been four years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington prompted an American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and the al-Qaida terror network it harbored. But despite last year’s presidential election of Hamid Karzai and Sunday’s apparently successful parliamentary elections, huge problems remain. Al-Qaida commander Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar remain at large. There is increasing violence, not just by the Taliban insurgents but also by criminal groups. Drug cultivation and trafficking, often supported by corrupt government officials, are skyrocketing. Powerful warlords limit the writ of the Karzai regime, which has not dared to confront them; some of those warlords, who helped tear the country apart, may soon be elected governmental officials. And many ordinary Afghans resent international aid groups, which they see as wasteful, ineffective and cut off from the people they are supposedly helping.
These problems threaten what had the potential to be an international success story. The stakes are high: If the international effort here fails, Afghanistan could again become a haven for radical Islamist groups and a center of narco-terrorism. With Iraq a mess, the U.S. and the West would be ill-prepared to deal with a failed Afghanistan as well.
Mitchell Prothero | Salon (read more. . .)