Afghan War deteriorates

The U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan appeared in jeopardy this week, after NATO suspended joint security operations with the Afghan army and police following a spate of insider attacks by Afghan soldiers. Six coalition troops, including four Americans, were killed last weekend by Afghans in uniform, bringing the death toll in such attacks to a record 51 so far this year, compared with 35 in all of 2011. An audacious and sophisticated Taliban attack on a NATO base last week also raised concerns about militants’ growing strength as the U.S.-led coalition continues to draw down troops in preparation for a 2014 departure. More than two dozen insurgents wearing U.S. Army uniforms breached the perimeter of Camp Bastion, killing two U.S. Marines and destroying six Harrier jets and other equipment worth at least $200 million. The attack was “a wake-up call,” one U.S. general said.

When we can’t even trust Afghan troops “not to shoot their trainers,” said James Joyner in NationalInterest.org, it should be obvious that this war has “long since been lost.” This week, the U.S. admitted as much “in deeds if not words.” Suspending training and joint foot patrols does suggest desperation, said Mark Thompson in Time.com. While some so-called green-on-blue killings are the work of Taliban infiltrators, others are caused by festering resentments against coalition soldiers, whom trainees accuse of openly disdaining Afghan culture and Islam. As these killings have multiplied, the “trust fissure” has turned into “a chasm.”

So why wait until 2014 to withdraw? said The Independent(U.K.) in an editorial. “With our soldiers increasingly attacked by their supposed friends” and security deteriorating, there is no longer any rationale for staying. “Too many lives are being lost, and too little gained by it.”

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That’s exactly what the Taliban want us to think, said Max Boot in CommentaryMagazine.com. They’re encouraging green-on-blue killings to discourage NATO and the U.S., in hopes of accelerating our pullout from this “forgotten war.” If we abandon Afghanistan, the Taliban will return with a vengeance, said Sajjan Gohel in CNN.com. Extremists would control half the country, brutally repressing women, raising millions through the cultivation of poppies, and providing funding and safe haven for terrorist groups. That would leave the West “more vulnerable than it was before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”