The bandwagon effect

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IT'S AS IF the deaths on Sunday of nine US soldiers at a remote Afghan outpost were meant to dot the i's on US presidential hopeful Barack Obama's proposal -- now seconded by Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain -- to turn the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, and to send 15,000 more US troops there.

A wave of 200 Taliban insurgents attacked from all sides and penetrated the Kunar redoubt, killing the troops and wounding 15 more -- a casualty rate of 50 per cent for the small American force. Four Afghan army soldiers were also wounded in the raid, which was eventually repelled after American warplanes dropped hundreds of pounds of bombs on the attackers, including a thermobaric anti-tank Hellfire missile which is widely condemned by human rights groups as especially barbaric. Despite this latest victory of the NATO forces, those still alive decided to retreat, tail between their legs, three days later.

Despite the Taliban's lack of outside support and the massive technical superiority and ruthlessness of the occupation, the insurgents have had several remarkable successes recently, including a major jailbreak in Kandahar in June which freed over 1,000 prisoners, followed by the liberation of 18 nearby villages. Elsewhere this week, it is business as usual. In Farah, an airstrike killed nine members of one family, in Helmand, a roadside bomb killed two civilians, and in Logar, Taliban militants kidnapped three judges. In May and June alone, 69 NATO soldiers were killed by the resistance forces, exceeding the death toll of troops in Iraq during the same period.

Obama and McCain may have different assessments of Iraq, with Obama arguing it was a colossal mistake and a distraction from Afghanistan, and McCain supporting it even now, and saying US forces must apply the lessons of Iraq in Afghanistan, whatever that could possibly mean. But McCain has joined the Obama bandwagon on Afghanistan, and they are both calling for shifting troops there from Iraq and increasing "aid". Their common plan is to increase the toll on both sides ostensibly in order to bring peace and prosperity to the devastated country.