On the recordMarch 28, 2012
The situation in Afghanistan is as bleak as I can remember at any point in the last 10\1/2\ years that we've been at war. In recent months, we've seen the burning of the Koran by American troops, a video of soldiers urinating on bodies of dead Afghans, spontaneous riots in the Afghan streets protesting the continued U.S. occupation, as well as deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers on the U.S. and NATO forces that are there to help and to train them. And now, in the most grotesque tragedy imaginable, 2 weeks ago a U.S. staff sergeant left his base, walked more than a mile to an Afghan village outside Kandahar, going door-to-door and systematically gunning down 17 civilians. The New York Times reported that one Afghan farmer was visiting a nearby town for the day and returned home to find that his wife, four sons, and four daughters had all been murdered in the attack. And here's the irony: According to the Times' account, because the Taliban still lingered in the area, the farmer had been concerned about moving his family back to this part of southern Afghanistan last year, but he was reassured by the very fact that he would be near an American military base. With these latest atrocities, how can we expect President Karzai, a reluctant ally under the best of circumstances, to continue to cooperate? How do we expect to convince the Taliban to come to the negotiating table for a peace and reconciliation settlement?…
