Military

DATE=9/2/03

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

NAME=SAVING AFGHANISTAN

NUMBER=6-13071

BY LINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: American newspapers are becoming increasingly concerned that the troubles in Iraq are eclipsing the stabilization effort in Afghanistan. We get a sampling now from V-O-A's ______________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: In the latest news, Afghan officials say Taleban fighters killed nine government troops and captured two others during a trio of weekend attacks in southern Afghanistan.

Many editorial writers fear that Afghanistan is being overlooked by both the U-S and European nations. At least that is the worry in Texas, where The Houston Chronicle warns: "Remember, the struggle isn't over in Afghanistan either."

VOICE: President Bush, speaking to counter growing uncertainty about the occupation of Iraq, reminded that "our war on terror continues." And so it does, which also must call our attention back to the almost forgotten fighting in Afghanistan, where U-S-led bombing raids this week and a major operation to hunt fugitive guerillas serve to underscore the troubling, unfinished business facing the nation and its allies.

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A growing number of attacks around the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway are strangling the flow of aid to southeastern Afghanistan, Newsweek reported, and bounties have been placed on the heads of U-S soldiers and international aid workers.

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As President Bush begins to make his case for staying the course in Iraq, he may want to put Afghanistan, where American lives are also still much at risk, into sharper focus too.

TEXT: Views of the Houston Chronicle.

That concern echoes along the shores of Lake Erie, as Ohio's [Cleveland] Plain Dealer laments:

VOICE: With Iraq headlines dominating the news, it's easy to forget that U-S forces continue to die in a war elsewhere. But earlier this year, fighting actually intensified along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border after a renegade Afghan warlord expelled from Iran joined the anti-U-S fight - a development underscoring the need to fashion a regional solution to ongoing violence in Afghanistan.

The Iranians had kicked out Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a disgraced former Afghan Prime Minister, under U-S pressure, but the warlord promptly set about rallying his forces and declaring a new jihad against allied forces. The result has been steadily intensifying violence and a new allied offensive this summer. This month, a Navy SEAL from New Jersey became the latest American killed in action [there].

TEXT: In Colorado, Denver's Rocky Mountain News agrees that: "Afghan aid must be [a] higher priority."

VOICE: The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress for a major increase in aid to Afghanistan, doubling the funds for reconstruction from the current 900 million dollars-a-year to one billion 800 million. And the administration is planning to send additional American experts to serve in Afghan government ministries. Even though our military commitment to Afghanistan is running around 11 billion dollars-a-year, there might be a request for additional troops, too.

As strained as U-S government finances are, Congress should underwrite this commitment. We need to start soon on the kind of high-visibility, high-employment road, water and power projects that we seemed to promise the Afghans in the heady days following the fall of the Taleban. Iraq has tended to suck up most of the oxygen in the war on terrorism and it has pushed Afghanistan down the agenda as a Bush administration priority.

TEXT: Portions of a Rocky Mountain [Denver] News editorial.

Lastly, South Carolina's Charleston Post and Courier applauds the new aid for Afghanistan, pointing out:

VOICE: The timing of the announcement of the new initiatives to build Afghanistan into a stable nation could not be better. In just a few weeks, we will mark the second anniversary of the September 11 [Th] terrorist attacks on the United States that were planned by [Osama] bin Laden in Afghanistan. Our new effort there should send a message to bin Laden's terrorists not to make any plans to return to their former home base.

TEXT: That editorial excerpt from Charleston's Post and Courier concludes this sampling of comment on new aid to Afghanistan and the security situation there.

NEB/ANG/RH