How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad

[swag]

Source: New York Times

At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

As defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed credit for toppling the Taliban with light, fast forces. But in a move that foreshadowed America’s trouble in Iraq, he failed to anticipate the need for more forces after the old government was gone, and blocked an early proposal from Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and Mr. Karzai, the administration’s handpicked president, for a large international force. As the situation deteriorated, Mr. Rumsfeld and other administration officials reversed course and cajoled European allies into sending troops.

When it came to reconstruction, big goals were announced, big projects identified. Yet in the year Mr. Bush promised a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, the country received less assistance per capita than did postconflict Bosnia and Kosovo, or even desperately poor Haiti, according to a RAND Corporation study. Washington has spent an average of $3.4 billion a year reconstructing Afghanistan, less than half of what it has spent in Iraq, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The White House contends that the troop level in Afghanistan was increased when needed and that it now stands at 23,500. But a senior American commander said that even as the military force grew last year, he was surprised to discover that “I could count on the fingers of one or two hands the number of U.S. government agricultural experts” in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of the economy is agricultural. A $300 million project authorized by Congress for small businesses was never financed.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/world/asia/12afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Newsjock]

1. 5,000-word article in Sunday's paper

This is no slouch of a story ... it's a major report, as they say. (5,053 words, actually, by the count on my machine.)

[bullimiami]

2. i am so sick of the farce of the afghan war i could puke blood.

a well intentioned war would have taken out the taliban because they were oppressive and not because they wouldnt play ball.
a well intentioned aftermath would have put a democratic peoples choice in as a government instead of strong arming them into taking karzai and the pipeline.

bush stomped afghanistan for the same reasons he stomped iraq.
Revenge, and Plunder.
If the Taliban would have gone along with the pipeline and played ball and passed bin laden over after 9.11, they could still be in power, beheading and beating as a partner on the 'war on terror', and be getting all of the same sweet benefits that the dictator across the border, musharraf, gets.

[Buck Rabbit]

3. good post.

[KT2000]

4. Wow! Good post

Revenge and Plunder
You summed it up very well.
I'd vote for President Bullimiami in a minute!

[EFerrari]

5. What is a well intentioned war? If you dig around enough

in American history, they all start to look like this rearranging of rocks and dna.

[EFerrari]

6. Oh, and in case any one missed Junior's address today

you can all relax. Democracy is on the march in Afghanistan.

(Holy cow. I can't believe this man is our pResident.

)

[Adsos Letter]

7. The DU er's are a well informed bunch....

...so you may already have seen this. I post it as an adjunct to swag's article.

Here is a link to a FRONTLINE documentary titled "The Lost Year in Iraq"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/view/

It just reconfirms how this administration fucks things up...

Much of the material in this Documentary was covered in greater detail in "Fiasco", by Thomas Ricks.