Article

2005-04-22 Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghan police retreat under fire from drug smugglers

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Posted by Fred 2005-04-22 00:00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Why didn't they call in an airstrike?

Posted by 3dc 2005-04-22 12:26:47 AM|| 2005-04-22 12:26:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Action against militias involved in the drug trade would be a internal matter, more of a police action. We don't get involved in those, there were no airstrikes when the Afghan militias belonging to those two warlords were wacking each other around the last time. We've avoided taking sides, which I think has turned out to be a good thing.

Posted by Steve 2005-04-22 8:11:45 AM|| 2005-04-22 8:11:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Agreed. For all the snippy LLL remarks about the blundering Bush administration, we've been surprisingly deft in handling Afghan affairs.

Posted by Steve White 2005-04-22 8:52:15 AM|| 2005-04-22 8:52:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 With the SF in Afghanistan leveraging local forces, one had to become quite deft in moving things along. There have been mistakes, like the handling of the surrounded forces in Konduz, or possibly Tora Bora, but the real facts will not come out for years, so we may never know the Hobbsian choices we had to make then.

But like Steve said, we have avoided taking sides in internal matters. Afghanistan is coming out of centuries of tribal ops. The Brits had a time of it in the last century. The Russians got their asses kicked. The Americans learned from these experiences, made mistakes, had successes, and made things happen. Afghanistan is no longer a santuary for terrorists, unlike PakLand and Waziristan.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-04-22 9:51:11 AM|| 2005-04-22 9:51:11 AM|| Front Page Top

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