Our Opinion: The other war
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:46 AM PDT
The level of danger in Afghanistan was made crystal clear last weekend when nine U.S. soldiers were killed in action in an ambitious and deadly attack by the outlaw Taliban guerrillas.
The soldiers were part of the ongoing peacekeeping/peace enforcement mission in Afghanistan that was once a showcase of how American military know-how and technology could crush any force.
Back in 2001, in the wake of the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a small number of American forces helped crush the repressive Taliban regime and open this nation rich in history up to the rest of the world and to democracy.
Fast-forward seven years, and the situation is far different. Despite help from NATO nations and aggressive tactics by U.S. forces, Afghanistan is a more deadly place than it was five years ago.
Overshadowed by Iraq, dismissed as a “pacified” nation, Afghanistan has been a hot war for years.
The trouble is most Americans have not seen that picture. Instead, news of the war on terror’s second front — Iraq — has crowded the airwaves and front pages.
That has to change. There are American soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan every month. Our local area is a little more familiar regarding the cost of war in general and the fight in Afghanistan in particular. Last fall our community watched one of our bravest come home after fighting and dying in Afghanistan.
One of the major problems with the fight in Afghanistan is the apparent sanctuary the porous border with Pakistan offers for the guerrillas.
Eerily familiar to the kind of situation our brave soldiers faced in Vietnam regarding Laos and Cambodia, the border situation will have to be resolved sometime soon in the future.
If Pakistan is unable to keep its border regions from becoming safe havens for guerrillas then this current administration has some very difficult decisions to make.
Those decisions, however, should be made quickly and should be structured to be of assistance to our forces.
