Retribution or healthcare? Obama needs to be clear
Ron Walters/NNPA Columnist
Issue date: 8/30/09 Section: Politics
During the campaign of President Obama, I was leery about his fierce intension to pursuit Osama bin Ladin in Afghanistan to the point that he would engage in a war against the Taliban. Yet, I felt, like most people, that it was a righteous objective, since it was aimed at atonement for the 3,000 people ruthlessly killed by Al Queda operatives at the New York World Trade Center bombing in 2001.
However, as the Obama administration has pursued the war in Afghanistan, it is becoming more clear that there is some confusion about the mission because it appears that he has to go through the Taliban to get to Al Queda. The logic of this policy of pursuing a war against the Taliban is that the administration is willing to shut down the military operation in Iraq, only to open it up again in Afghanistan.
And the mission now appears to be to wipe out the Al Queda base in Afghanistan so that it cannot pursue operations against the U. S. or any other targets globally. This would be fine, except that there is widespread recognition that much of the base of Al Queda is also in Pakistan.
The major problem is that although the Taliban has relations with Al Queda, no one has yet defeated the Taliban, neither the Russians nor the British, and it is unlikely that a full fledged war between them and the United States will change that history. They have the advantage of familiarity with conducting military operations on their own terrain and we have the disadvantage: fighting a guerilla insurgency - more sophisticated than that in Iraq - from a distance.
The war against Osama bin Laden has morphed into a war against the Taliban, and a wider relationship of nation building with Afghanistan in order to support their own effort to control the political forces in their country that may be hostile to U. S. interests. But the question is how long will that strategy take and how much will it cost in money and lives and, most important, will it lead to the primary objective of capturing or killing bin Laden?
However, as the Obama administration has pursued the war in Afghanistan, it is becoming more clear that there is some confusion about the mission because it appears that he has to go through the Taliban to get to Al Queda. The logic of this policy of pursuing a war against the Taliban is that the administration is willing to shut down the military operation in Iraq, only to open it up again in Afghanistan.
And the mission now appears to be to wipe out the Al Queda base in Afghanistan so that it cannot pursue operations against the U. S. or any other targets globally. This would be fine, except that there is widespread recognition that much of the base of Al Queda is also in Pakistan.
The major problem is that although the Taliban has relations with Al Queda, no one has yet defeated the Taliban, neither the Russians nor the British, and it is unlikely that a full fledged war between them and the United States will change that history. They have the advantage of familiarity with conducting military operations on their own terrain and we have the disadvantage: fighting a guerilla insurgency - more sophisticated than that in Iraq - from a distance.
The war against Osama bin Laden has morphed into a war against the Taliban, and a wider relationship of nation building with Afghanistan in order to support their own effort to control the political forces in their country that may be hostile to U. S. interests. But the question is how long will that strategy take and how much will it cost in money and lives and, most important, will it lead to the primary objective of capturing or killing bin Laden?
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