The Iraqification of Afghanistan

[DeeDeeNY]

The Iraqification of Afghanistan
By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group

Winter approaches, and as many as 400,000 Afghans face starvation. The trouble is not an insufficient supply of food. There is no way to get food to those who need it.

Attacks on aid workers and the hijacking of food convoys -- the United Nations' main feeding program says it has lost about 100,000 tons of food to attacks by insurgents and criminals so far this year -- have made it all but impossible to transport supplies along the main road connecting vast stretches of the country between Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west.

. . . .

While the Bush administration crows about the apparent pacification of some neighborhoods in Iraq as proof that its surge of military forces there is working, Afghanistan hurtles toward chaos. You might call what is now unfolding there the Iraqification of Afghanistan.

The Taliban is resurgent, and has extended its presence through more than half of Afghan territory, according to new research by the Senlis Council, an independent, international think tank with field offices in Afghanistan. This is no longer a regional or tribal threat, but a full-blown insurgency aimed at U.S., NATO and other allied troops, as well as the government of Hamid Karzai, portrayed in Taliban propaganda as an illegitimate puppet of Western powers.

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