U.S. Back at Full War Footing in Afghanistan

From the Brian Ross ABC News blog the Blotter, courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

The United States military is quietly carrying out the largest military offensive in Afghanistan since U.S. troops invaded the country in 2001.

"The Taliban has made a comeback, and we have the next 90 days to crush them," said a senior U.S. military official.

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Oh my gosh. I thought we'd already won that one. What's up with this?

Okay, obviously, I'm being heavily sarcastic: we never won in Afghanistan; the White House simply declared it so, just as it did with jet flights and "Mission Accomplished" banners for Iraq, but, unlike Iraq, the press essentially bought the phony declaration and stopped covering this other war for the most part. As far as I can tell, we're failing there for many of the same reasons we're failing in Iraq, not enough reconstruction money making it into the right hands, a thinly disguised puppet-government lacking true support from the people, corruption, and too many civilian deaths at the hands of US service personnel. And, oh yeah, I can't forget to mention the fact that there are simply not enough US troops in Afghanistan to create the stability needed for the actual nation-building that Bush campaigned against back in 2000, thank you very much Mr. Modernize the Military Donald Rumsfeld.

Anyway, this is bad news, another quagmire apparently, with no end in sight. Christ, this country is so fucked up right now.

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