American troops are fighting and dying to defend corruption in Iraq. Now they are defending a government that is busy lining it's pockets rather fighting the enemy. Is it any wonder we aren't "winning?"
The U.S. government's former point man in the fight against the heroin trade in Afghanistan has accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of obstructing counter-narcotics efforts and protecting drug lords.
Thomas Schweich, who resigned last month from the State Department's narcotics bureau, said in an article to appear on Sunday in the New York Times magazine that the Afghan government was deeply involved in shielding the opium trade.
"While it is true that Karzai's Taliban enemies finance themselves from the drug trade, so do many of his supporters," Schweich wrote in article posted on the newspaper's Web site.
"Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government," he wrote, adding that drug traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials.
And now that the Bush administration has essentially given up on Afghanistan, the likelihood of stopping the Taliban is remote. Obama will likely send troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. But if we can't "win" in Iraq with all those troops how are we going to win in a country where the enemy has
free reign?
The Pentagon is unable to send additional combat brigades to Afghanistan this year because of constraints imposed by the war in Iraq, leaving a shift of forces to the next president, a spokesman said Wednesday.
US commanders in Afghanistan have requested three more combat brigades, or about 10,000 troops, to deal with growing insurgent violence in the eastern and southern parts of the country.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said improving security conditions in Iraq have raised the prospect for freeing up troops for Afghanistan next year, but Iraq remains the Bush administration's top priority.
"It looks as though this government is going to work to provide additional forces for Afghanistan next year," Morrell said. "How many, whether it is the three additional brigades that the commanders want I think is a question for the next administration."
Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has vowed to make Afghanistan the top priority if elected. His Republican rival, John McCain, argues that success in Iraq is more important, but has said he would send more troops to Afghanistan.
President George W. Bush met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military chiefs in a secure conference room at the Pentagon to review progress on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Morrell said efforts were underway to figure out what forces or military assets could be sent to Afghanistan in the near-term.
Whether additional forces can be diverted from Iraq to Afghanistan "is going to be the fundamental issue before the military leaders, the civilian leaders in this building in the coming months," he said.
But Morrell said providing additional combat brigades would require a more rapid drawdown of US forces from Iraq or the mobilization of guard and reserve troops.
"Obviously we don't have the means to send three BCTs (brigade combat teams) to Afghanistan at this very moment, without making some very hard choices," he said.
"You can't snap your fingers and make this happen."
Morrell's comments were striking because they came just a week after Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed vivid concern about the rising violence and deteriorating security in Afghanistan.
