inside the glass house

When the going gets tough in Kabul, too
NEW YORK - The US military has always been primed to fight two wars simultaneously at any given time-- and win both. But the two conflicts it is now battling-- one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan-- are not the type of classic conventional wars which American forces are geared to win with their heavy weapons.

The sophisticated fighter planes and state-of-the-art missile systems deployed by the US are relatively irrelevant in urban warfare where American forces remain helpless against suicide attacks and roadside bombings.

If the military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to deteriorate, the Bush administration may face colossal disasters, eventually losing both countries.

So far, the mainstream media have remained focused primarily on Iraq, virtually ignoring the military debacle the US and NATO forces are facing in Afghanistan.

The reason: the conflict in Afghanistan is being overshadowed by news of the escalating violence, torture and killings in Iraq. But analysts who closely monitor the region say security in Afghanistan remains tenuous and has shown no signs of improvement. And they predict the explosive situation there might soon turn out to be as catastrophic as in Iraq -- but on a relatively smaller scale.

The US has about 15,500 troops in Afghanistan compared to about 130,000 in Iraq. But the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which took over command in Kabul last August has an additional 6,500 troops in Afghanistan.
While US forces are trying to hunt down Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents in the rugged mountains, NATO troops are fighting an urban warfare in unfriendly Afghan cities.

With the failure of the 26 nations that comprise NATO to provide fresh troops and military equipment, the stranglehold on Afghanistan too is beginning to slip from Western hands.

Last week, the London Financial Times quoted an unnamed NATO official as saying: "Failure (in Afghanistan) will completely damage NATO's credibility in finding a role in the post-Cold War era."

Afghanistan is also a test case for NATO on how successfully it could battle a war outside its own borders. The results so far seem to be disconcerting. The bottom line is that no Western military force, however well-armed, can win a war while occupying a country that does not provide a welcome mat.

The similarities between Iraq and Afghanistan are striking. As in Iraq, insurgents in Afghanistan have not only been attacking the multinational military force but also local police and foreign aid workers.

The Pentagon, responding to charges of torture by US soldiers, says that at least 25 prisoners have died in US custody, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported last week that the US military interrogators, accused of abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, had not only served in Afghanistan but used the same aggressive rules and procedures in both countries.

The economic reconstruction of both countries too has either been painfully slow or come to a complete standstill because of the security situation. Both the World Bank and the United Nations, along with major humanitarian aid groups, have withdrawn most of their international staff because of security fears.

Since the killing of a UN aid worker in Afghanistan last November, most international staff working for more than 30 UN agencies have been withdrawn from southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The Soviets, who militarily occupied Afghanistan for over a decade, pulled out in 1989. The Taliban government that followed was ousted by US military forces in late 2001. Washington then installed Karzai, described by many as a US puppet, as the new president.

After his return from Kabul last January, UN Special Representative to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi said that despite a heavy western military presence and a two-year-old US-backed government in Kabul, Afghanistan was reduced to a country with no rule of law. The situation is no different in Iraq.

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