Thursday, June 19, 2003

The Forgotten War
I guess you would have to say that Afghanistan is now "the forgotten war." How far have we strayed from capturing Bin-Laden? Who remembers the brave men and women in Afghanistan that are now largely forgotten by the rest of the world while the United States and England try to get a straight answer from our leaders about Iraq?

Wasn't it the Taliban that gave Bin-Laden a place to hide? Wasn't the mission to "smoke them out of their caves," and find them? We had a good man in place- Hamid Karzai, and now we have walked away from him while he sits in Kabul without our help. Where is the nation building? How is the hunt for Bin-Laden going? When was the last time you heard Mr. Bush mention Bin-Laden at all? All of these are proper questions to ask. It isn't unpatriotic to hold Bush accountable for this. It is right and proper. It is our duty.

I struggle with this issue myself as I support John Kerry. It makes me wonder if I truly am playing politics. I hope I am not. I can remember the anguish I felt on September 11th. I remember how I wanted to support George Bush and the war. Then I slowly began to understand that he can not get the job done. Tora Bora and the airlifting of 800 Pakistani Al-Qaeda prisoners in a Pakistani transport plane to safety convinced me we were mishandling the situation.

It is not too late. We can still get it done in Afghanistan. It is going to take real commitment. It is going to take intellectual honesty. A multilateral approach to building a true nation in Afghanistan , and now Iraq, can happen. It can happen with us, but not without us.

It starts with Regime change, here. Now.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/19/1055828433772.html

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home