Thanks to Wikicommons.
Since the chaos in Libya broke out it is easy to forget America’s still in up to its (name a body part) in another little place: the nation of Afghanistan.
This July, the US is handing over defense of parts of the nation fully to the Afghan government. Must mean things are going great right?
Not quite….
Reports are showing that the Taliban and even worse, Al Qaeda, is finding safe havens within Afghanistan as US troops left obscure valleys.
As David Axe reports from near the Pakistan border while accompanying an Army patrol
After three years without any coalition contact, the area has become an overt Taliban stronghold…
…With local Afghan troops still badly inexperienced and the surge of U.S. troops slated to end this summer, this border could quickly fall back into neglect.
So, okay, maybe the periphery of the nation is unstable but most of the country is fine right?
Well, as we reported earlier, stability is fleeting as the burning of Korans in the US triggered riots across Afghanistan.
Expert and resident of Afghanistan Tim Lynch suspects that these riots may have not been spontaneous as for the Talib.an
the Koran burning provided the perfect opportunity for an organization with motive, money and organization to whip a large crowd out of control.
Further aggravating the situation is America’s fraying relationship with Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai. Years of insufficient funding, shifting strategies, and perceived coldness from Washington, Ahmed Rashid reports, has Karzai feeling
that he no longer trusted the United States, its representatives, or their advice.
This is a big problem Rashid notes as
the road out of the conflict runs through a close U.S.-Karzai relationship, whether either of them likes it or not, and today that relationship is imperiled to a degree that it never has been before.
Long story short don’t expect the ending of the Afghan conflict to be quick or clean. We’ve been there almost ten years and we’re suspecting we’ll be reporting on this conflict long into the future.
