The European Union's foreign affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, warns that the Afghan insurgency is becoming increasingly dangerous and spreading into the once tame northern provinces. From Associated Press:
"We have seen that unfortunately the insurgency has come back," Ferrero-Waldner told a business forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
"Now some of the (troop-contributing) countries are going all to the south," she said. "But what about the north, the north is falling apart again."
What wasn't pointed out is that the insurgency is spreading beyond the Pashtun/Taliban regions as other Afghan warlords start to side with the insurgents to oust US and NATO forces. This is no longer just us versus the Taliban. This is on the cusp of becoming a much more generalized civil war and that ought to be of real concern to us given that we've never had more than a fraction of the troop strength necessary just to deal with the Taliban alone.
Some of the Taliban's former enemies, nasty characters like the warlords Hekmatyar and Haqqani, have recently thrown in with the insurgency.
What's most remarkable about this isn't the growth of the insurgency or its spread but the total refusal of our political and military leadership to even acknowledge what's going on. They can't be honest with us about it because that would force them to explain what they intend to do about it.
We know Canada's response. Harper announced just a couple of weeks ago that, come 2011, we're gone - period. My guess is that Harpo is praying this doesn't turn into a total shitstorm in the meantime.
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