Taking out the wild, wild West

President Bush might face approval from the newly Democratic-controlled Congress for one of… President Bush might face approval from the newly Democratic-controlled Congress for one of the first times in its new term. He has proposed the addition of 3,200 troops – who were previously scheduled to go to Iraq – in Afghanistan, which would help the current NATO coalition currently stationed there to combat an anticipated spring Taliban offensive, according to an article in The New York Times.

The troop extension will increase the current number of American forces in Afghanistan to 27,000, the highest number since 2001, when the United States toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bush has acknowledged that Taliban forces have recently “struck back with a vengeance,” making 2006 the most violent year in Afghanistan since the Taliban was driven from power.

We support the move to refocus – although with only an increase of 3,000 troops, “refocus” might be a bit of a stretch – the fight on terror to Afghanistan.

The Bush administration’s current “War on Terror” began as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks, which were designed and carried out by al-Qaeda. It seemed at the beginning that we were targeting the right place and the right people for the right reasons. The Taliban regime was harboring al-Qaeda terrorists, specifically ringleader Osama bin Laden. The removal of the Taliban regime and the hunt for terrorists in Afghanistan seemed like the best approach at combating the terrorists who struck us on our own turf.

But five years – and a shift of country focus – later, we are knee deep in Iraq, and the hopes of leaving the country better than we found it are becoming increasingly slim. And now, to make things worse, things are starting to slip in Afghanistan, too.

The recent surge in violence in Afghanistan has no doubt caused President Bush to realize that there is a strong likelihood that the country may fall back into the hands of the Taliban, a regime that profits off of drug cultivation and harboring terrorists.

Bush is also re-focusing on the hunt for Osama, who is believed to be hiding on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Bush has described as being “wilder than the Wild West.”

It’s about time.

Bin Laden has been the primary voice in the terrorist backlash against the United States, and capturing him would be a huge victory in suppressing terrorism.

In a speech on Thursday, the president also encouraged NATO allies to supply more soldiers to the growing fight against the Taliban, especially in Afghanistan’s most dangerous locations. Currently, the United States, along with Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom, make up the majority of the coalition stationed in Afghanistan. The fight on terror should be a global one, and it’s time that we received the aid from other members of our coalition.

Sadly, the Bush-initiated-and-implemented War on Terror has fallen desperately away from the optimism with which it was first approached. And while we may never leave Iraq as a stable and functional democracy, a re-focus on Afghanistan will prevent it from falling back into the hands of terrorists, which can be seen as one small victory in the War on Terror.