Fighting To Win In Afghanistan -- A Commentary

General David Petraeus, seen here on October 7, has been appointed to lead the US Central Command -- which has responsibility for Afghanistan. The US administration hope that the "surge" strategy Petraeus' implemented in Iraq can work in Afghanistan.
(AFP/Getty Images/File/Jonathan Ernst)

Analysis: America Decides To Fight And Win In Afghanistan
-- The Telegraph

When British and American soldiers were called to Kabul's Ministry of Culture last week, those who had served time in Iraq were greeted with a grimly familiar scene.

Charred and mangled bodies littered the building, the victims of a suicide bomber who had penetrated security at one of the most heavily-guarded sites in the capital. A Taliban spokesman later gloatingly confirmed that the attack was aimed at the ministry's Western advisers, part of a new strategy of terror against Kabul's foreign aid community that saw British aid worker Gayle Williams shot dead two weeks ago.

It was a stark reminder of just how vicious the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan has become – and of the scale of the task facing the American general who has been ordered to claw back victory from the jaws of what is starting to look like defeat.

General David Petraeus, the 'warrior-scholar' credited with working a miracle in Iraq, is taking command of the war that America forgot. On Friday he started as head of US Central Command with orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, think up new tactics, and work out a strategy that, after years of muddle, bloodshed and drift under Nato's confused command, will take the battle to the Taliban and win the war.

His old enemy appear to be planning their own surge; US intelligence believes that Arab jihadists have been arriving in the Pakistan borderlands as Iraq cools and Afghanistan hots up.

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My Comment: Both U.S. Presidential candidates have made it very clear that Afghanistan is a war that the U.S. must win. With the Iraq war winding down, this renewed focus is going to change the dynamics on the Afghan battlefield appreciably ..... expect heavy fighting and casualties for 2009.