Columnist.
WASHINGTON -- Eight years ago this week, just 25 days after the vicious attacks of 9/11, the U.S. struck back at the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Thirty-three days later, U.S.-supported Northern Alliance troops were in Kabul, and the remnants of al-Qaida and its Taliban hosts were in retreat to Kandahar and mountain redoubts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. All of this was preceded by intense diplomacy and a virtually nonstop publicly aired series of presidential announcements, news conferences, speeches, debates and discussions at the White House, from the badly damaged Pentagon, in congressional hearings -- even at the United Nations.
WASHINGTON -- At the conclusion of the 1939 movie "Gone With the Wind," Vivien Leigh, playing Scarlett O'Hara, defers decision on what to do about the major crisis in her life with this sentence: "After all, tomorrow is another day." Unfortunately, the Obama White House seems to have adopted Scarlett's decision-making process for the war in Afghanistan. Note to the O-Team: Kabul isn't Tara -- and Americans are dying while the commander in chief dithers. On Wednesday, Sept. 30, a full month after Gen. Stanley McChrystal submitted his "assessment" of the situation in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama convened a three-hour meeting of his "national security team" in the White House Situation Room to "discuss next moves." According to information subsequently provided by the White House press office, Gen. McChrystal "participated in the meeting" via an encrypted video link, and no decisions were made.
KABUL -- Our Fox News' "War Stories" team is cleaning our gear and packing up to go home. The special operations teams that "hosted" us for a half-dozen carefully planned and executed raids against the Taliban have showered us with patches, "challenge coins" and mementos accumulated since we arrived last month. We even got to shower ourselves. While on operations, we've shot hours of videotape of their backs and legs and on their bases and taken hundreds of photos with their cameras because we're not allowed to show most of their faces. On our last night "in country," we sat down with them in their operations center to review the footage we had shot to ensure that whatever we put on the air in the days ahead will neither jeopardize allied lives nor divulge forthcoming operations. While we were scanning through the "tapes," one of our hosts informed us that The Washington Post had published a slightly redacted version of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's 66-page classified "assessment" on where we are headed in Afghanistan.
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHINDAND, Afghanistan -- According to colleagues back home, our Fox News team here in Afghanistan has missed all the excitement. They note that since we left the USA last month, Washington has been the scene of the largest peaceful protest in history against a sitting government. We didn't get to see a bold congressman rise during a televised joint session of Congress to accuse the president of the United States of prevaricating. We were unable to witness the outing of White House "green jobs czar" Van Jones or the sudden demise of a corrupt, scandal-ridden, "anti-poverty" organization called ACORN. And because we don't have television or radio or newspapers out here, we also missed Vice President Joe Biden's blitz on Baghdad. All pretty exciting stuff. But I wouldn't trade a single day with the raiders with whom we have been keeping company for any of that.
KHAN NESHIN, Afghanistan -- We're with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in southern Helmand province, just 75 kilometers from Pakistan, in "battle space" that was the heart of Taliban territory until a few weeks ago. When these Marines fought their way into this dusty district capital in July, the Taliban were stunned. No Afghan government or coalition authorities had been here since 2002. Taliban leaders across the border in Pakistan told their minions to fight back. They did, and it was a terrible mistake. Scores of them died trying to stop the joint American/Afghan National Army troops from establishing a foothold here.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Last month, our Fox News' "War Stories" team was in Colombia, covering the tough fight against a narco-insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. This month, we're in Afghanistan, covering another narco-insurgency, the Taliban. In Colombia, cocaine fuels and funds the terror. Here in Afghanistan, it's opium. Despite extraordinary differences in culture, climate and terrain, there are dramatic parallels in the two campaigns. More importantly, lessons learned in the Andean basin are being applied here in the shadows of the Hindu Kush. Both countries have isolated agricultural populations vulnerable to coercion by insurgents financed by narcotics trafficking. In Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, the FARC turned to drug funding when support from fellow communists dried up with the collapse of the Soviet empire. Here in Afghanistan, the global leader in opium production, the radical-Islamist Taliban became drug-dependant after being driven from power in 2001 during the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom.
BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- It is amazing how a change of geography can alter perception. In the weeks leading up to this, my 16th Fox News deployment to cover the fight against radical Islamic terror, the news was full of attacks on civilian contractors. The target: those who have been providing support for U.S. military and intelligence operations since Sept. 11. "Contractor" is the new "dirty word" in the so-called mainstream media -- and in Washington. On Capitol Hill, contractors are the Rodney Dangerfields of the war -- they just "get no respect." Here, where the war is being fought, contractors are regarded as essential to victory.
WASHINGTON -- Last week's brief "Three Amigos" summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, has been all but forgotten in the growing storm over "health care reform." That may be what the three North American heads of state, Presidents Felipe Calderon and Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wanted. All three leaders did their best to ignore the skunk at their picnic -- the serious threat posed to all of us by narco-terrorism. If comments after the confab reflect their thinking, thousands of dead and wounded at the hands of violent drug cartels warrant less attention than the "threat" of global warming and the H1N1 virus.
WASHINGTON -- Racing through the Phoenix airport, a Wall Street Journal headline immediately captured my eye: "Taliban Now Winning." I grabbed the newspaper and headed for my flight. By the time I arrived in Washington, I had a half-dozen e-mails from my Fox News colleagues asking for my assessment of the situation. There was also a "be prepared" message from my boss alerting me to pack my kit for another trip to the Hindu Kush. Seeing as I haven't been there for a year, it seemed like a good time to get smart about what's happening behind the headlines. Here is some of what I learned from those now on the ground -- including our Fox News correspondent Greg Palkot and cameraman Mal James -- some of the troops who have returned recently, and others getting ready to go:
Former President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton has returned from Pyongyang, North Korea, with Al Gore's employees Laura Ling and Euna Lee. The two women, reporters for Gore's Current TV operation, were seized by North Korean border guards March 17 along the frozen Tumen River -- the border between North Korea and China.
