U.S. to Hand Over Afghan Mission to NATO
The American mission to bring order to this unruly country is being
handed to a multinational force led by the NATO alliance, a move that will
subordinate U.S. troops under foreign command in a combat situation for the
first time since World War II.
NATO's ambitious mission could inject the flagging European-North
American alliance with a sense of purpose and also might take the heat off
Washington, seen in this region as too eager to fight Muslims. But there are
questions whether NATO will engage in the type of offensive operations the
U.S.-led coalition has.
"NATO needs to grab hold of this mission for NATO's sake," U.S. Central
Command chief Gen. John Abizaid said in a recent interview with The Associated
Press. Jumping outside European boundaries is "where the alliance needs to go to
stay relevant for the future."
In a little over a year NATO has been out maneuvered, outright lost, handed back or misplaced a lot of the country. Unfortunately, the Taliban, the court jesters of religion, warfare and culture, have been there to pick up the pieces.
Now, a multinational force, including American forces, are trying to take back a major city in the south of Afghanistan back under control. I agree with Gen. George Patton, I don’t like paying for real estate twice, which we have to do since we allowed our troops to be commanded by non-Americans without America’s best interest at heart.
In Afghanistan, a Do-Over Battle
The town, where some 2,000 Taliban fighters are believed to be holed up, was
surrounded on Friday by British and Afghan forces, in preparation for an
airborne assault by U.S. troops expected overnight in a drive to recapture the
town. Musa Qala was captured by the Taliban in February of this year, without a
shot being fired — they simply rolled into town and planted their flag after
British forces withdrew, having brokered an agreement with local tribal elders
to keep the peace. And the radical movement fighting to expel foreign forces
from Afghanistan and reimpose its harsh brand of Islamic rule has held the town
ever since.
The battle to own Musa Qala is expected to be intense, because of its value to both
sides. For the Taliban, there's major symbolic value in being able to hold a
town in a country ostensibly under the control of more than 40,000 NATO troops
and their Afghan allies. Musa Qala is also at the center of the opium industry
whose revenues fuel the Taliban insurgency, and its location near the mountains
north of Helmand make it a useful command center for an insurgent army. For all
the same reasons, it's important to NATO to dislodge the Taliban. That, and the
fact that it's a do-over, correcting what many officials see as a mistake by the
British forces that allowed the Taliban to take control in the first place.
The problem for NATO, however, is that Musa Qala may be a very
visible Taliban position, but it's only one of hundreds — by some estimates,
today, there is a permanent Taliban presence in more than half of Afghanistan,
and NATO — struggling to expand its troop strength from reluctant European
nations — is not well-placed to roll it back. The breadth of the territory
across which the Taliban now operates across southern Afghanistan all the way up
to the capital reflects the extent to which the uncommitted civilian population
is hedging its bets. With the harsh winter coming, Musa Qala may be one of the
last major engagements of the current fighting season. But next spring's
thaw is expected to bring the war in Afghanistan quickly back to the boil.
How many mulligans are we, the United States, going to give other countries that can’t quite decide if they want to win this war? Those mulligans are costing us our soldiers lives and respect from our enemy while enhancing our enemy’s standing in the court of public opinion including their standing amongst the losers barking and whining in the chambers of our Congress.
