For a few years now we’ve kept our eyes fixed on the war in Iraq and turned a blind one to Afghanistan. Is that because we wanted to draw attention away from the fact that we could find Osama Bin-Ladin? Well, once again our eyes are drawn to this region because of escalated violence and screams for reinforcements, but who will provide them? There are 18,500 of foreign, mainly NATO troops and about the same number of American troops. Canadian and British forces reside in the south with American aircraft support and Special Forces ground troops.
The violence has indeed escalated, not from Bin-Ladin’s Al Qeada but from local Taliban militant groups. The latest violence resulted in the death on of 16 Taliban fighter during a gunfight with Afghani police overnight.
Here are the current statistics on the ISAF troops stationed in Afghanistan. Even though the only countries that suffered attacks are the U.S. and the U.K. (subway bombings) still our brothers and allies aid us in the fighting and I say this because I think that we wrongly take our allies for granted. Even the French whom criticized our policies (with good reason) and yet they are still aiding us. So just remember when you start to get pompous remember that although our foreign policy isn’t the best, we still have friends that aren’t just fair-weather so lets not screw it up (remember Freedom Fries?).
Imformation and graphic from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5341654.stm
1 comment:
Honestly I think that our allies are helping us because we are friends. Some times you don’t agree with your friends opinion but still you are friends and they might ask you to have a talk with them about something that they really don’t need to be telling you but yet you are still there for them. They might ask you to do something that they can do on their own but we do it anyway because we are friends. I honestly think that our allies have their reasons. I agree that we should not screw anything up because allies can be pulled just like a cord. But I am glad that they are helping us. People complain about how many troops we have deployed now, think if we did not have any allies we would have to deploy that many more troops to take their spots. I guess sometimes you do things for people just so that they owe you one maybe this is it. Now we owe them. I really don’t know what all to say because we cant say why someone else is doing something, we don’t know what he or she are thinking.
Tamra Jennell
Post a Comment