Well folks it has been nearly three years since we "liberated" Afghanistan. While georgie shrub likes to tout how free and wonderful Afghanistan is, the mainstream media seems to be showing us the same thing. But further investigation seems to tell a different story, a story that needs to be told. Because to me it shows the cost of our change of focus from Afghanistan to Iraq.

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Whither Afghanistan?

"The peril of the situation is abundantly clear from observations and conversations with Afghans about post-Taliban life, where guns and money substitute for the rule of law; upcoming elections, rather than being celebrated as a sign of progress, are dreaded for the violence and fraud that is already accompanying them (see guns and money substitute for the rule of law); the United States has provided a $25 million loan to rebuild a five-star hotel, and warlords are using money from opium poppies and CIA payoffs for fighting the Taliban to build palatial private residences on stolen land, while teachers and government workers in Kabul can not afford the $100 per month rent for three rooms without water or electricity on their $30-a-month salaries.

It is a country teetering dangerously on the edge of a steep precipice."

But more disturbing is the amount of troops we now have over there.

"While 18,000 American and allied soldiers spend their time unsuccessfully searching for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar – the missing weapons of mass destruction from the Afghan conflict – only 6,500 NATO peacekeepers are on the ground to protect a population estimated to be 25 million to 28 million. This ratio of one peacekeeper per 4,000 Afghans is nothing like the 1:50 ratio that was maintained in Bosnia and Kosovo, and is laughable to a warlord and, until recently, provincial governor like Ismail Khan, whose personal army of 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers dwarfs the peacekeepers. President Karzai's attempt to control him by removing him as governor and promoting him to Min[i]ster of Mines and Industry last week was rejected by Khan and sparked deadly attacks on U.N., U.S. and Afghan interests in Herat."

Also the first step in a new democracy should be elections, well this is where there is a huge problem as well.

"The election preparations, financed predominately by the United States and Britain at a cost of $100 million, are based on 24-year-old census data because, without disarmament, the country was not secure enough to take a new census. This calls into question the celebratory mood surrounding the United Nation's announcement that over 90 percent of 'eligible' voters had been registered in advance of the thrice-postponed, October 9 presidential election (parliamentary elections are off until at least April).

That 90 percent figure is also questionable when one considers that nearly half of the country has been deemed at elevated risk by the United Nations, and much of these risky areas are entirely off limits to U.N. workers. Even more astonishing is the recent upward revision of these registration figures. Now the U.N. figures show that over 107 percent of eligible voters have been registered to vote. In response, President Karzai, a leading candidate, responded: 'This does not bother me. This is an exercise in democracy. Let them exercise it twice.'"

The end of this article sums my concerns up rather well.

"By playing leapfrog with Afghanistan, the Bush Administration jeopardizes the safety and health of poor Afghans who will suffer if their country once again becomes hostage to narco-terrorists, warlords and unlawful rulers. Humanitarian concerns aside, the policies also threaten to destabilize the country in ways that, as we've seen, lead to tragic consequences for the rest of the world, too. When your playmate is a country teetering on the edge of a chasm, leapfrog is the most dangerous game of all."

Is our president waging an effective war on terrorism? That is a valid question to ask, and I submit that NO he is not. I don't understand why my friends on the right can't see that. At least see that it may not be going the way we would like it, and accept the possibility that georgie shrub may not be doing the correct things. Showing strength but the inability to adjust to the reality on the ground is not true strength but rather stubbornness. Which I believe is NOT an effective way to protect this country from an ever changing threat.