Does President Obama know just how deep the rabbit hole called Afghanistan goes? I hope so. The following doesn’t bode well…
“When we first invaded Afghanistan, the goal seemed clear: topple the Taliban, destroy Al Qaeda, and kill Osama bin Laden.”
“The Taliban ceded power almost overnight. Al Qaeda loyalists still mount attacks on U.S. supply lines and troops, but their training camps are gone. As for bin Laden, he could be anywhere, but we haven’t had much luck in finding him.”
“Meanwhile, security has deteriorated, and the people of Afghanistan don’t seem thrilled to have us around.”
“The older man is an Army intelligence analyst. His job is to read reports on everything from enemy movements to the weather and pass it up the chain of command. But on this night, he speaks of the sobering difficulty of bringing peace to this land.”
“‘This country is ruled valley to valley,’ he says. ‘Each valley is, in many ways, its own state. Most people who live in these valleys spend their whole lives there, sometimes never leaving. I’ve had our guys tell me that when they first got here back in ’02, some of these people thought we were Russians. They didn’t know that Ivan was gone, and they didn’t know that we’d showed up.'”