What did Bush Accomplish in Afghanistan?

«Operation Retaliation»… «Operation Enduring Freedom»… Such are the emotional names, with which the Bush Administration is calling the gross intrusion of the United States of America into Afghanistan. One full year has passed since that moment. So, what results have the Americans achieved during this time?

Originally, the plans of the US command implied assisting oppositional formations of the Northern Alliance by supplying them with military equipment. Then they planned to land US troops in the country and finally defeat the Taliban with the support from anti-Taliban forces, and arrest and eliminate the leaders of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda. Great Britain was directly assisting the US with manpower and equipment.

But out of all listed above far from all has been put to practice. The main thing is that Osama Ben Laden, Mullah Omar and the majority of other leaders are alive and well and it seems impossible to find them at this moment.

After the forces of the Northern Alliance took Afghan capital Kabul on November 13, 2001, the second phase of the operation had started. That phase implied the deployment of US troops in the country. Early in the morning on November 26 US marines landed near Kandahar. During one month both US and British troops were stationed in most of the Afghan provinces. After the combats for the fortress of Tora Bora (mid-December 2001) no active combat operations were conducted in the country. Nevertheless, the US is not telling when exactly the operation will be over. Why not?

According to some of the experts, this is because America is losing the war in the informational field. The mightiest instruments of propaganda (TV, radio, press), that the US has, have been aimed at the Western audience until recently. Such a mistake that the Americans have made will now be working against the US for quite a while: what Bush’s image-makers failed to do, was done by Ben Laden, who from the very beginning has drawn a parallel between the war against Afghanistan and the war against the Muslim World. In people’s minds America has been associated with being an aggressor, who dreams to annihilate Islam. The image of Jihad on one side and crusades on the other has been firmly established in the minds of Muslims. The US was caught by surprise, because such confrontation leads other even quite loyal Muslim countries away from the US.

Americans have made an attempt to defend themselves with a humanitarian action. But bombings with dropping food at the same time, or Bush visiting a mosque just do not work. All subsequent actions of the US on the informational front are only causing bewilderment. In the final analysis, repeated statement about catching Ben Laden very soon have led to the fact that the US has become a laughing stock and now the US prefers to drop that subject.

Repeated operations on eliminating the Taliban. How many of them there were and no results whatsoever. Unsuccessful bombings that the Americans have committed. Everybody remembers one of them when American pilots bombed a village where a wedding was going on. What kind of a positive image can the US have after that?

The losses among US servicemen are still one of the closed subjects. The number of killed and wounded American soldiers and officers is growing every month. Especially the losses in secret units of special forces, which are carrying out missions to search for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders. This is another page in the recent history of the US.

First reports about big losses among US servicemen arrived November 27, 2001, when according to the official version, 16 marines died during the battles near Kandahar. US troops suffered their largest losses during «Operation Anaconda». Again according to the official version, over 60 servicemen were killed or wounded in combat actions. The capture of American and Canadian soldiers was concealed. Only during one day on March 5, 2002, a report was received that in the vicinity of the city of Gardez (150 kilometers south of Kabul) 9 US servicemen were killed and 40 wounded during shootouts with the Taliban.

According to the official information, the US has lost at least 7 airplanes, 16 helicopters and over 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). According to unofficial information, the losses are much higher.

Although, the experts say that Washington is still ready for great losses – in one country adjacent to Afghanistan, rear services of the US Armed Forces ordered and stockpiled 2,000 zinc caskets.

Latest reports from Afghanistan speak about big problems that both Karzai’s puppet government and the peacekeeping contingent have. As it is known, only Kabul and its surroundings are guarded by over 5 thousand servicemen from different countries. In spite of all that, there is no peace in Kabul or in any other city. In February 2002 so-called «minister of aviation» of Afghanistan Haji Abdula was shot dead Kabul. «Defense minister» Kasim Fahim was also assassinated. On September 5 a car stuffed with TNT exploded. On that same day in Kandahar fire was opened at the car with Hamid Karzai in it.

Now we know that while counting on the so-called «Northern Alliance», pro-American anti-Islamic coalition has only provoked a new turn in the war in that long-suffering country. In Western Afghanistan the Pashtuns are fighting with the formations of Ismail Khan; in the North «mini-armies» of several leaders are at enmity with one another – Uzbek general Dostum, Tajik Mohammad Atta, and Hazari leader Halili. In the East Field Commander Bacha Khan Zadran has «privatized» three provinces – Khost, Paktia and Paktika. The leader of «Hezb-e-Islam» group Gulbeddin Hekmatyar has called for Jihad against foreigners once he returned to the country.

The contingent of 9,000 American troops is not getting involved in that fight and the list of victims of that internecine strife is growing day after day. New combats were reported in Western Afghanistan the other day: fierce clashes took place in Zer-e-Kla 25 kilometers south of Shinand. Ismail Khan’s militants attacked Pashtun formations of Amanulla Khan. Prior clashes between Tajiks and Pashtuns were happening near Great in August 2002; back then the losses were about 70 killed, but neither side managed to take the disputed territories under its control.

After actually missing the victory in the Afghan campaign, Washington is now preparing a new one, this time in Iraq. Broadscale destabilization in the Middle East has become the main component of the US strategy to establish the world domination.

The Washington Post reports in the worst traditions of the Soviet propaganda that the military campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda now consists of digging wells, restoring schools and rebuilding bridges. This is exactly what Soviet troops were [allegedly] doing back in the ‘80s. Everybody knows how it all ended. And America is not even doing a part of what the Soviet Union was doing back then.

American soldiers are dying and missing in action in Afghanistan. Everyone is talking more often and even louder about the «Afghan Vietnam», and no censorship is able to stop it. The information about the losses of the US forces and their allies is penetrating into mass media on a daily basis, which speaks about the fact that military operations in Afghanistan are acquiring protracted and cruel nature. US servicemen and their allies become targets for the attacks not only by the Taliban, but by ordinary Afghan people embittered because Americans and their allies killed thousands of the country’s peaceful civilians over the year since the war has been going on.

Blitzkrieg in Afghanistan has not happened. The White House has been closing its eyes and kept saying that it would all be over soon. But de-facto the things are quite different in Afghanistan. And Washington is trying to put a good face on things. But it is not coming out too good. They are already saying in the US quite openly: goal No.1 is to withdraw from Afghanistan with as little number of losses as possible, i.e. «leave while preserving image».

Jean Tekei, Kavkaz-Center