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America's Forgotten War
By SEBASTIAN JUNGERMore than four years after the invasion of Afghanistan, 20,000 U.S. soldiers are still there, pitting their diplomatic skillsand massive airpoweragainst the Taliban's terror tactics This now, too, is war: an American colonel striding through the market of a mud-walled Afghan town, scanning the produce. There's lots of itfresh tomatoes, peppers, carrotswhich one vegetable seller attributes to a new storage facility in nearby Kandahar functioning as it should. Otherwise, the produce would be overpriced and imported from Pakistan. All this, in some indirect way, is good news for the American military, which for four years has been fighting an infuriatingly low-level war in the mountains of Afghanistan. If there's plenty of food, according to this line of thought, the locals are doing well and will support President Hamid Karzai's fragile coalition government in Kabul. And if they support the government, they won't help the insurgents, who have kept 20,000 American soldiers pinned down in an almost forgotten war. As a result, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stammer walks through town every week or so to take the pulse of the community. Minutes earlier he finished up a visit to a local girls' schoolbuilt with American moneywhere he had knelt down in front of the headmistress and knifed open several boxes of school supplies for the children. The supplies had been sent by his wife, and included soccerballs bought by the women's soccer team at the University of Texas. The schoolmistress thanked him, and another person added that if he "heard anything" he would let Stammer know. By that, he meant that he would call if he got word of Taliban activity in the areawhich, in turn, might allow Stammer to pre-empt an attack on American soldiers. By all measures the situation in Afghanistan may be skidding dangerously off the rails. American military deaths in the past yearnearly a hundredalmost equal those for the three preceding years combined. According to a recent internal report for the American Special Forces, opium production has gone from 74 metric tons a year under the Taliban to an astronomical 3,600 metric tons, an amount which is equal to 90 percent of the world's supply. The profit from Afghanistan's drug traderoughly $2 billion a yearcompetes with the amount of international aid flowing into the country and helps fund the insurgency. And assassinations and suicide bombings have suddenly taken hold in parts of Afghanistan, leading people to fear that the country is headed toward Iraq-style anarchy.
Posted by: john 2006-03-30 |
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