OBAMA IS GETTING OUR SOLDIERS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN FOR WHAT?

The United Nations confirmed yesterday (6/21) it is moving staff out of Afghanistan because of rising violence there.  So far this month 59 international soldiers, 36 of them Americans, have been killed, and a governor in a key district has been assassinated.

It remains to be seen whether this June will be the bloodiest month ever for U.S. and NATO troops.    But it’s clear things have gotten worse since President Barack Hussein Obama decided last December to send 30,000 more troops there.

Three obvious reasons why this is so are the deadline the president set for next year to begin withdrawal of U.S. troops; ridiculous rules of engagement, and the poisonous relationship Mr. Obama has established with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

In his speech last December at the U.S. Military Academy announcing the troop surge, the president also said the U.S. would begin withdrawing troops in July of 2011.   The White House confirmed Sunday (6/20) Mr. Obama plans to stick to that, despite the fact that his military leaders have said a fixed timetable is a bad idea.

A public timetable for withdrawal is militarily insane because it encourages our enemies to wait us out, and discourages friendlies from cooperating with us for fear they soon will be abandoned.

George Will reported Sunday on an email from a non commissioned officer in Afghanistan on why the rules of engagement under which our troops operate are "too prohibitive for coalition forces to achieve sustained tactical successes."

In one instance, permission was refused to fire illumination rounds over an enemy position for fear of collateral damage, the NCO said.  In another, U.S. troops suffered casualties because they are forbidden to pursue suspected terrorists into Afghan homes unless a soldier from the Afghan National Army is present.

There is much to criticize about Afghan President Hamid Karzai.  But President Obama’s public criticism of him was a diplomatic mistake not even rookies should make.  As a result of  it, Mr. Karzai has fired the two members of his cabinet who were closest to the United States, and — according to some reports — begun secret negotiations with the Taliban.

As with the economy and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Barack Hussein Obama’s bungling in Afghanistan has made a bad situation worse.  But as with the economy and the oil spill in the Gulf, it wasn’t Mr. Obama who made the mess in the first place.

The primary responsibility for the mess in Afghanistan rests with George W. Bush, who converted an astoundingly successful campaign to oust the Taliban into a nation-building exercise that was likely to end in failure even before Mr. Obama’s modifications to it which virtually guarantee failure.

It was also Mr. Bush who installed Mr. Karzai, who with his brother Ahmad has turned the Afghan government into a billion dollar criminal enterprise, according to the London Times.

"We are supporting a criminal state in Kabul that is likely involved with the insurgency itself," said Ann Marlowe of the Hudson Institute, who has been embedded with U.S. troops six times.  "There is almost nothing to distinguish the Taliban from the Karzai mafias, whose tentacles reach down to the most obscure rural districts."

We went to war in Afghanistan because the Taliban was providing shelter to al Qaeda.  But al Qaeda’s leaders left long ago, and there’s no reason to suppose they’d ever go back, their current digs in Pakistan and Iran being more comfortable, more secure, and provide better access to international targets.

We’re told we need to establish a pro-Western democracy in Afghanistan because neighboring Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and it would be terrible if they fell into the hands of Islamic radicals.  But since the Taliban is largely the creation of Pakistan‘s ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence agency), how would a Taliban victory in Afghanistan  make Pakistan worse than it already is?

Matt Waldman, currently of Harvard University, spent two and half years in Afghanistan with Oxfam International, an aid group.  He says he spoke with nine Taliban commanders last year.  They told him the ISI "orchestrates, sustains and shapes the overall insurgent campaign."

Mr. Obama’s strategy virtually guarantees defeat in a year, but only after billions more have been spent, and more Americans have died.  Better to bring the troops home now.  We can use them along the Mexican border.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.