KABUL – The sixth day of the military offensive in southern Afghanistan proved the deadliest so far as four NATO troops were killed in bombings and gun battles during the painstaking push to take back a Taliban stronghold. From the beginning of the operation in Marja — the biggest joint military operation of the war – coalition troops have encountered sporadic gunfire and a host of roadside bombs, many detected before they could cause damage or injury. But the Taliban resistance has appeared to intensify rather than diminish as U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers have taken control of key roads, bridges and the defunct government center.
The top military commander in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, said that the operation had reached the "end of the beginning" but that it would take about a month to be sure "we have secured that which needs to be secured." Three of the four deaths Thursday came in two separate roadside bombings; the fourth service member was killed by small-arms fire. The deaths brought the toll for the Marja offensive to at least nine NATO troops and one Afghan soldier. NATO did not release the nationalities of those killed Thursday, but a British soldier was among those who died.
The operation in Marja is intended not only to push out the Taliban but also to install a local government and Afghan security force where there have long been none. The pace has been slowed by regular insurgent attacks and the prevalence of mines and bombs, which can make moving even short distances an undertaking of hours…
As the Iraq War drug on, Cheney met criticism with comments about staying power and finishing what we started. They fell on deaf ears because in the back of most of our minds, we knew we shouldn’t have started the war in the first place. Afghanistan is, to me, a different state of affairs. It is a just war – our invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban harbored and allied with al Qaeda. They share common goal and philosophy. They both have intimidated the Pakistani and found refuge there. And look at our relative troop committments:
The Afghanistan War smoldered on a back burner for 5 or 6 years while we fought Cheney’s War for Oil rights in Iraq. Our commander-in-chief let us down, big time. Now we’re actually fighting it, and for the first time, we have an ally – Pakistan. About ________ time! Right now, we’re hampered by the need to have no civilian casualties, an almost impossible task. We’ve been there so long, we’ve forgotten that it’s a even war, because the Bush Administration never treated it that way. It was a necessary diversion. The real objective was Iraq – the war that was going to pay for itself.
I feel a little bit like the kid I was during the Korean War – playing with plastic soldiers and cutting out pictures of fighter planes. It was soon after WWII when war was still heroic and it hadn’t occurred to anyone that it was possible to think otherwise. That came in Viet Nam. I’m almost rah-rah about the Afghanistan War, at least about the Taliban part.
The
Taliban was a student movement in Pakistan among Afghan refugees in the Islamic Schools. They took over the government of Afghanistan in 1996, supported by Pakistan and installed a harsh theocracy:
… that does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1400 years ago and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the past 14 years.
which involved:
Under the Taliban regime, Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide variety of activities hitherto lawful in Afghanistan: employment, education and sports for women, movies, television, videos, music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events, kite flying, and beard trimming. One Taliban list of prohibitions included:
pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards.
Men were required to have a beard extending farther than a fist clamped at the base of the chin. On the other hand, they had to wear their head hair short. Men were also required to wear a head covering. Possession was forbidden of depictions of living things, whether drawings, paintings or photographs, stuffed animals, and dolls. These rules were issued by the
Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice [PVSV] and enforced by its "religious police," a concept thought to be borrowed from the Wahhabis. In newly conquered towns hundreds of religious police beat offenders [typically men without beards and women who were not wearing their burqas properly] with long stick. Theft was punished by the amputation of a hand, rape and murder by public execution. Married adulterers were stoned to death. In Kabul, punishments were carried out in front of crowds in the city’s former soccer stadium.
We can’t base our invasion on the Taliban fallacy of, "we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the past 14 years," the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice, or the harshness of their rule. Instead, our legitimate case for war [Casus Belli] hinges on "jihad is our right" and their active allegiance with bin Laden’s al Qaeda who attacked New York. It’s a pretty solid case. So if it’s a just war, and it’s a war we’re going to fight, best plan is to win it. Left to their own devices, the Taliban is on a road that only goes in one direction. Their notion, "We want to recreate the time of the Prophet," is historical revision at its worst. Mohamed never suppressed women, nor did he beat people over the length of their beards or execute them in a soccer stadium. He preached Arab Unity, love, and humility before Allah. The radical fundamentalism of the Taliban is their own creation, their version of Jihad is their own interpretation, their vision for Afghanistan something made up in their exile as orphans in the Koranic Schools of ungoverned northern Pakistan. Their fall is of their own making…
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