After meeting with military officials, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, opened today’s committee hearing “with an expression of concern about trends in Afghanistan.”

I believe that we currently risk a strategic failure in Afghanistan and that we must do what it takes to avoid this disastrous outcome. We must re-prioritize and shift needed resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. We must once again make Afghanistan the central focus in the war against terrorism.

Indeed, total violence increased by 27 percent from a year ago. According to Retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan who testified in front of Skelton’s committee today, the number of roadside bombs increased by 425 percent between 2004 and 2007; suicide bombings soared from “three in 2004 to more than 130 in 2007.”

The enemy in Afghanistan — a collection of al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezb-e Islami and foreign fighters — is unquestionably a much stronger force than the enemy we faced in 2004.

This entry was is filed under Incompetence, Body Shots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.