Karzai: How About a Surge in Afghanistan?

George W. Bush's iconoclastic strategy for military success in Iraq (even more of the same!) garnered more than its fair share of media attention over the past month and a half, eventually resulting in the recent deployment of more troops in Iraq and the public realization that "surge" is far more popular as a euphemism for "desperate military escalation" than it ever was as a carbonated beverage. But once again, lost amongst the Iraq shuffle, is poor old Afghanistan, the neglected front in the "war on terror," where "defeated" Talbani fighters are gearing up for a major 2007 offensive. During her trip to Afghanistan to survey the situation there, Nancy Pelosi encountered a startlingly obvious, but hitherto unasked question from beleaguered Afghani president Hamid Karzai: Where is our troop surge?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives that his security forces need strengthening, as the two discussed possible U.S. troop increases, an Afghan official said.

Karzai stressed his desire for increased training and equipment for Afghanistan's fledgling army and police forces, the Afghan official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information publicly.
[...]
The Pentagon last week said a brigade of U.S. soldiers would stay in Afghanistan four months longer than planned — an effective troop increase of 3,200 soldiers. That announcement came only days after a visit here by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Pelosi, meanwhile, has led a drive in Congress against President George W. Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq as part of a new security crackdown in Baghdad.
What's really sad about the situation in Afghanistan is that if Bush had decided to exclusively focus on rebuilding the country there and actually defeating the Taliban (Mullah Omar still remains at large) rather than venturing off into Iraq for no particular reason, he almost certainly would have kept much of the international support for the "war on terror" that the US had after 9/11, his approval rating very likely wouldn't be at its lowest point ever and by all rights the Republicans may very well have kept control of both houses of Congress. Live and learn. Unfortunately the Afghanis cannot afford to be quite so glib about the situation, being the focal point of a wave of Taliban inspired violence threatening the existence of Karzai's shaky government.

And while Iraq, which by all accounts remains a clusterfuck, is getting an additional twenty-one thousand troops, Afghanistan, where they would more likely be happily greeted and are clearly also necessary, is only getting a very slight boost in troop deployment and a minor fraction of the financial support. Seems like a fair enough question, president Karzai. So how about it? Where's the Afghanistan surge?

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