Afghan imbroglio paints grim picture for U.S.

The Pentagon has released a report detailing in comprehensive detail to failure of NATO’s adventure in Afghanistan. 2007 saw more roadside attacks than any year so far, while 6,500 people died in all attacks, “a post-invasion record.”

Things haven’t got any better in 2008. June saw a record number of coalition troops killed (40) and a sharp spike in attacks on U.S. forces.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. has been seeking to offload blame onto Pakistan, where the government has been seeking a peace deal with its own militants on the north west frontier. Believing that such a deal would be prejudicial to its own Afghan operations, the U.S. appears to have been torpedoing Pakistan’s efforts, preferring to shun negotiations and keep the regional conflagration burning (and the military industrial profits churning).

Afghanistan is now rivalling Iraq as the biggest cause of concerns for the United States, says a Pentagon report on the situation in a country where until recently US officials were confident of a convincing victory against the extremists.

The Pentagon’s first assessment of the Afghan situation since the US invasion of 2001 depicts a grim picture. The report concedes that the Taliban militants — who ruled Afghanistan from the late 1990s until 2001 — have regrouped after their initial defeat and have “coalesced into a resilient insurgency”.

“The Taliban will challenge the control of the Afghan government in rural areas, especially in the south and east,” the report warns. “The Taliban will also probably attempt to increase its presence in the west and north.”

The Pentagon notes that the Taliban militants carried out a record 2,615 roadside-bomb attacks in 2007, up from 1,931 in 2006. The roadside bombings — along with a wave of suicide bombings and other types of attacks — killed 6,500 people in 2007, also a post-invasion record.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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