Senator Biden started the press conference yesterday by referring to the situation in Afghanistan as "the forgotten war". Senator Kerry warned that Pakistan and Afghanistan are "the most strategically vital region in our struggle against terrorists," each country capable of destabilizing the other.
We've written here several times about the tenuous situation in both countries. Senator Kerry, Senator Biden and others on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have called attention, time and again, to the fragile state of these two nations and the threat that's posed by our inattention, and again yesterday the Senators underscored the need to refocus.
Kerry and Biden recently returned from the Middle East and the two Democratic senators described what they observed during their visit.
Video Credit: C-SPAN
Video Credit: C-SPAN
Senator Kerry listed what we must do to ensure the stability of the region. We need more troops in Afghanistan and a comprehensive strategy to deal with the poppy crop. We need to train the Afghan police, to assist in the country's reconstruction, and we need a coordinator to oversee operations.
The situation in Afghanistan is not something we can afford to set aside for some future diplomatic effort. Al-Qaeda has regenerated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and is a threat to the US. The Taliban is subsidizing the Afghan poppy farmers, and the farmers in turn feel that the Taliban is seeing to their needs. By sustaining the local farmers, they are winning if not the hearts, at least the wallets of the Afghan people. And by enabling heroin production, they are not only sustaining local farmers, but funding their own resurgence and helping to deliver almost all the world's heroin.
The Senator explained that the Afghan people are our most important ally and our most important asset, and that we need to provide them with a viable alternative to the Taliban. We can't do that if they see the Taliban as the answer to their economic problems. We can't stop the opium production if we don't make a concerted effort to give the farmers reasonable alternatives.
And we can't win a forgotten war.
It's really kind of shocking the warnings our government refuses to heed. Senator Kerry wrote of the dangers of global crime, terrorism and the drug trade in "The New War" a decade ago. He led the Iran-Contra and BCCI investigations almost a quarter century ago. And yet, we've still not learned the lessons history has set before us.
Today on C-SPAN:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing this morning on post-election Pakistan.
