The Guardian: Dark days ahead for Kabul

[babylonsister]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1975694,00.html

Simon Tisdall
Wednesday December 20, 2006
The Guardian

President Hamid Karzai's lined, care-worn face is as good a record as any of five years of terror and counter-terror in Afghanistan. The strain is plain for all to see. Speaking in Kabul last week, George Bush's favourite Muslim democrat was in tears as he talked about Afghan children killed in the west's latest campaign against the Taliban.

"We're not as strong as the foreigners ... We can't prevent the terrorists coming from Pakistan. We can't prevent the coalition from bombing terrorists. And our children are dying because of that," Mr Karzai said. "Cruelty at the highest level. The cruelty is too much ..." Western countries should be thanked for aiding his country, he added. But "still they can't rescue Afghanistan and its children from the cruelty and the suicide attackers and the hand of the enemy".

Such candour is admissible these days in respect of Iraq - but on Afghanistan, the official line remains bullish. At the Nato summit in Riga, Tony Blair insisted the war was being won despite a bloody autumn for British, Canadian and Dutch troops in Helmand and Kandahar. His view was endorsed by the UN security council on December 7. "We should be careful that we don't overstate this unconventional military challenge," said Nato commander General James Jones.

Similar complacency was on offer last year from the then defence secretary John Reid when the additional British deployment was announced. Since then 4,000 or more people have died in insurgency-related violence. The kill rate is accelerating. Civilian deaths account for roughly one-quarter of the total. There have been over 100 suicide attacks. Drug trafficking is up. And British troops have become the latest foreign detachment to be accused of killing civilians.

Worse is sure to come. The Taliban, its Pakistan-based allies and a gathering host of foreign jihadis are gearing up for a spring offensive that could dwarf what has gone before. "I expect next year to be quite bloody," Ronald Neumann, US ambassador in Kabul, told the New York Times recently. "My sense is the Taliban wants to come back and fight. I don't expect them to win but everyone needs to understand that we are in for a fight."

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[tom_paine]

1. Bushler has painted us into so many corners

There is no way out but down into free fall. Plus, Bushler has re-established the 1890s Grand Chessboard with vigor and with the decline of Internationalism and international cooperation comes renewed dangers.

Plus, Putin looks to be consolidating power as Russian Bushler only 10X more competent,shameless and dangerous. Bad news for the Russian People, who enjoyed a brief opening of their tyrannical metaphoric tomb and it was snapped shut a couple years ago.

As I predicted, a great upsurge in evil and anti-Enlightenment values (fundamentalism of all reliogions, for one) has taken place.

Troubling times ahead.