Afghanistan Isn't Easy!

Afghanistan Isn't Easy!

While watching the nightly news recently, I was fascinated by the fact that Afghanistan is now 80% controlled by the Taliban. Iraq, however, seems to be coming along quite nicely and is even making progress in establishing itself as a potential democracy. Afghanistan just held an election that is now considered a sham since few were able to vote, yet the ballot boxes got filled.

Isn't it ironic? Don’t you think?

The U.S. was attacked by al Qaeda, who were able to make plans and train terrorists in the sanctuary provided to them by Taliban government in Afghanistan. All Iraq did was turn away U.N. inspectors who wanted to look for WMDs in their country. So, in the end, we’re losing the war that we should have fought and winning the war that we didn’t need to fight.

Before all you MandM haters start tearing into me with your illogical arguments about chemical weapons and Saddam being such a bad guy, think of the reason we are losing in Afghanistan: our resources have been deployed fighting another war.

Several of the world’s greatest empires have tried to conquer the world and failed when they got to Afghanistan. Fighting in the mountains is not an advantageous visiting-team situation. It’s the Lambeau Field of war zones, for you football fans out there.

Let me give you some examples:

• Genghis Kahn (see map)


• Alexander the Great (see map)


• The British Empire (see map)

Did those of you who actually looked at the maps notice anything about the common area they had trouble conquering?

It is difficult to see in the maps precisely, but not even the greatest empires in history were able to conquer Afghanistan. (Throw in the U.S.S.R. and Hitler for good measure. )

So, we shouldn’t feel bad that we are having so much trouble finishing things in Afghanistan. All of this actually makes George W. look good for distracting us with Iraq and its nice, flat fighting areas, and for choosing a terrain where we could actually win battles.