[Peace-discuss] Obama of Kabul will have his battle on schedule this spring?

[C. G. Estabrook]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

"...The Taliban’s strength is growing on Kabul’s doorstep, in the provinces of 
Maidan Wardak and Logar. The main highway south is a turkey shoot that no one 
sensible travels along. In the east of the country, the rebels have taken new 
ground as they move freely across the border. In the north, warlords are 
reasserting their dominance – raping and beheading at will. The violence affects 
us all. Kabul is a claustrophobic, paranoid place. Rockets occasionally land in 
the streets, ugly concrete barriers have appeared and Afghans kidnap each other 
for ransom. Last autumn, on a bright October morning, a British aid worker was 
murdered in a part of the city regarded as safe.

"More foreign troops are due to be sent. But they risk the kind of backlash 
experienced by the Soviets, and the long-term aim is unclear. After all these 
years, there are no firm ideas about the way forward. For now the bitter cold 
has brought the usual lull. But how much more violence will come this spring?"

[Chris Sands is a British freelance journalist, and frequent contributor to 
CounterPunch, who has been working independently in Afghanistan since August 
2005. This article appears in the February edition of Le Monde Diplomatique.
The full text appears by agreement with this excellent monthly, whose English 
language edition can be found at mondediplo.com. CounterPunch features two or 
three articles from LMD every month.]