Afghanistan: Obama Surrenders

From Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Magazine:

“The Afghan War is coming to an end,” said Barack Obama on May 23, but it is not ending well. NBC News reported Tuesday that “U.S. and Taliban representatives will meet soon for the first time to begin what are expected to be long and complex negotiations for a peaceful settlement to the war in Afghanistan.” The U.S. entered Afghanistan to topple the Taliban from power and end their influence in the country. In light of that, these talks in themselves constitute an admission of failure. But these talks are far from the first of those.

In an incident emblematic of American policy failure in Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials in Afghanistan’s Farah province were holding an inauguration ceremony last August for new recruits to a village police force. As part of the ceremony, the new policemen were given weapons that they would use for training. As soon as one of the recruits, Mohammad Ismail, received his, he turned it on the American soldiers who were present, murdering two.

Such attacks epitomize just how foolish and wrongheaded our national adventure in Afghanistan has been. In that instance, Farah’s provincial police chief, Agha Noor Kemtoz, explained: “As soon as they gave the weapon to Ismail to begin training, suddenly he took the gun and opened fire toward the U.S. soldiers.” Ismail had just joined the Afghan Local Police force the Sunday before his attack. Nonetheless, according to the Associated Press, “the NATO-led coalition has said such attacks are anomalies stemming from personal disputes.”

In the intervening months, NATO has not grown more honest or forthright about the genuine cause of these green-on-blue attacks, which have continued. They have gone even farther in other attempts at face-saving, claiming that the attackers are not part of the Afghan jihad against NATO forces. According to ABC News, “officials have said most of the attacks are motivated not by support for the Taliban, but for ‘private reasons’ including grievances against local Afghan commanders, ethnic feuds, and depression. Senior U.S. officials have insisted the attacks don’t indicate a high level of Taliban infiltration into the army.”

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