A senior US officer in Afghanistan has suggested that our forces there have snatched the initiative from the Taliban, and that the vaunted spring offensive will be ours, not the Taliban's.
View video here.
The MSM/Dem drumbeat has been that by fighting the war in Iraq, the United States has taken its eye off the ball in Afghanistan, that a big Taliban offensive is about to begin there, and that it could be a key to the Taliban fully re-establishing itself in the country.
Take, for example, the comment made by Sen. Barack Obama in a Today appearance yesterday in the context of the publication of the confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: "I think we have ended up being distracted, particularly in Afghanistan, from dealing with the kind of real threats we heard about today."
But a senior officer on the ground has expressed a different perspective. Colonel David Enyeart, now on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, is Deputy Commander of Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix V, charged with training the Afghan National Army and police. In a conference call with the Colonel in which I participated recently, COL Enyeart expressed the view that the spring offensive could actually be the Taliban's last stand.
Appearing last night by phone, live from Kabul, on rightANGLE, the TV show this NewsBuster hosts, COL Enyeart made some telling additional comments: "This is a winnable war here, and there are a lot of positive things going on here that are starting to show."
Finkelstein: "You feel that there really is an opportunity to strike a decisive blow at the Taliban in the course of the spring offensive?"
COL Enyeart: "As time goes on, we're more and more prepared to take care of the offensive that's coming. It's our spring offensive, it's not the Taliban's spring offensive anymore."
Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
