BUSH CAN'T AFFORD TO LET AFGHANISTAN WOES WORSEN

It is likely Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf were not feted with tea and Twinkies when they
dined with President Bush at the White House on Wednesday. Tea and
Twinkies were on the menu when Musharraf visited Comedy Central's
"The Daily Show" earlier in the week, but there were far
fewer laughs at the White House when Karzai and Musharraf
met face-to-face after publicly squabbling about the lack of
security along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

While Musharraf has denied his country is abetting Taliban fighters,
reports suggest otherwise. It is believed Pakistani sympathizers are
harboring al-Qaida leaders and supporting the Taliban by swapping
weapons for drugs. Indeed, poppy cultivation has blossomed in
Afghanistan -- a problem Karzai said he takes responsibility for.
The United Nations estimates this year's opium yield has gone up 49
percent, and money gleaned from the drug-infused flowers goes into
the warlords' pockets and then buys weapons for Taliban fighters.

It was believed, five years ago when the United States went into
Afghanistan, that the Taliban -- who had ruled Afghanistan since the
Soviets withdrew -- had been decimated. But like the poppy that
grows so effortlessly in the harsh Afghan soil, they have grown in
force and in determination to take back control of the country. The
entire southern part of the country, near the Pakistan border, has
been devastated by suicide bombers and roadside bombs.

The murder of an Afghan official who was working for women's rights
was fanatical and repugnant. Safia Amajan was a religious woman and
wore a burka when a Taliban gunman shot her four times with a
pistol. The vicious killing recalled filmed scenes in a
Kabul sports stadium when the Taliban were in power and a woman was
brought into the middle of the field and shot in the head.

NATO forces, about 18,500 troops, are frustrated because their
mission had been intended to help reconstruction, not fight the
Taliban, and they rightly are asking for more troops. Many Afghans
have lost faith in Karzai's government: Only one in 10 has
electrical power at home.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed
Monday that the American government must pressure our allies who
"have pledged troops and assistance" but have not followed through.
Pakistan President Musharraf recently made a deal with tribal lords
to leave jurisdiction of their lands to them in exchange for no
militant incursions into Afghanistan. It isn't working. It is hoped
President Bush communicated this to Musharraf and that he will turn
his attention again to the continuing problem of Afghanistan's instability.