American air strikes on Taliban forces are ongoing. Will American forces cover the Afghan security forces until their morale solidifies?
The top American general overseeing operations in Afghanistan declined to say Sunday night whether U.S. airstrikes against the Taliban would end Aug. 31, the date previously given by officials as a cutoff for such attacks.
Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of United States Central Command, refused to commit to ending the United States last remaining military leverage over the Taliban: airstrikes.
The insurgents’ recent advance across Afghanistan has resulted in the capture of over half the country’s districts, and now threatens its major cities.
The Taliban are furious, alleging the American air strikes violate past agreements. As if their continued waging war is perfectly fine.
Nice work if you can get it, as the saying goes.
I'm against the American and NATO withdrawal.
But the failure to maintain air strikes that can take advantage of information provided by our allies on the ground astounded me. Restoring that help is a bare minimum of sanity:
On paper, the Afghan government can hold. But in the real world, fear of death is heightened by the American-led withdrawal. If enough time passes without a general collapse of government morale, the paper balance will win out.
But the Taliban have a window of opportunity when fear of the unknown without America holding the hand of government forces makes government officials and forces scared enough to preemptively give up.
Perhaps American forces need to heavily bombard the Taliban during the period before and after the final withdrawal until that window of opportunity is closed. As much to support Afghan government morale as to destroy and disrupt the Taliban effort to exploit our withdrawal.
Although we are now fighting with a greater degree of difficulty from air bases far from Afghanistan.
The next step is even more of a problem if this doesn't work.
UPDATE: Of the problems Afghanistan faces this is the one I worry about most:
Morale [of government security forces] could become fragile under growing pressure — as a former U.S. ambassador has pointed out, Afghan wars have typically ended when people decided “that one side was going to win and stopped fighting.”
We are in a danger zone now. Can we help Afghan forces through this fragile period to emerge intact and able to continue the fight in earnest?
