Two Months (and change) Later

by Marko Peric

This is rant #4 on this topic. You can read the first three here, here, and here.

Well, well, well. As I write this the Taliban is crumbling like a sand castle in a desert windstorm. Cities like Kabul and Jalalabad, cities whose names most of us didn't know two months ago, are no longer under Taliban control. And Kandahar, the central hub of the Taliban's power, is apparently being abandoned rapidly. There's television footage of men in Kabul having their beards shaved, something that wasn't allowed under Taliban-enforced strict Islamic law. It all sounds very positive, doesn't it?

Now I'm saying that these advances aren't a good thing. The Taliban was one of the most oppressive governments on the planet and very few people are going to miss it. Even if nothing else is accomplished by the campaign in Afghanistan this is a significant achievement. Thing is, I don't think the US government was all that concerned about the Taliban. After all, the Taliban was in power for five years, and no one outside of Afghanistan did anything to remove them. This is only a beneficial side effect.

While things seem to be going great for the good guys, there's still a long way to go. The Taliban may well have been protecting bin Laden and al-Qaida, and that protection is now gone, but as this campaign has shown, Taliban protection isn't worth much in the face of heavy bombing and aggressive mujahadeen. Bin Laden's network has most likely taken some losses (notably the reported death in an airstrike of his right hand man Mohammed Atef), but is probably still reasonably intact.

So what's next? A new government in Afghanistan is almost an inevitable now. Hopefully the US will have enough sense to maintain a presence there and build a new democratic regime with a viable economy. It worked for Germany and Japan after WWII, it should work here too. After all the last time the US won a war in the Middle East they left the problem leader in place, and we all know who that is.

Does any of this bring us any closer to winning the war on terror? Well, one less government friendly to terrorism is a step in the right direction, but terrorists have existed for years without government backing, most often quite the opposite, in fact. Having official support is obviously useful for terror mongers, but hardly necessary.

If I was bin Laden, I'd be gone from Afghanistan already. Since the new government would hand him over faster than they ask you at McDonald's if you want fries, what's the point in hanging around? Sure, the borders are closed, but show up at a lightly guarded crossing with a heavily armed squad of al-Qaida fighters and wave a big fistful of money at the border guards, and don't tell me bin Laden couldn't get into Pakistan. Or Iran, for that matter. If he stays in Afghanistan it will demonstrate an extreme stupidity, something bin Laden isn't known for (if you ignore the fact that he's picked a fight with the last remaining superpower and he gave up life as a Saudi millionaire to live in a cave in a third world country).

Where does this leave us? Progress is being made, but I think this is far from over. Bin Laden probably has a card or three left in his deck. Let us hope we get him before he has a chance to play them.