08/31/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10101

FRANKS ON AFGHANISTAN

The United States-led coalition is rooting out the Taleban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. The coalition is training the Afghan national army and bolstering the new government. But the military aspect is only one part of the coalition’s effort in Afghanistan.

U.S. and coalition forces are in some cases providing humanitarian assistance directly, or are improving conditions on the ground so that humanitarian workers can deliver the needed aid. As U.S. General Tommy Franks said, "Receiving not so much notice is the tremendous international effort that has gone on and continues to go on." More than three-hundred non-governmental organizations are providing humanitarian assistance.

Numerous water wells have been dug in Afghanistan. A bridge on the road from Bagram in the north to Kabul, the Afghan capital, is nearly complete. When it is completed Afghanistan will have a trade route providing access to central Asia.

More than thirty schools have already been rebuilt. Boys and girls are once again being educated. Numerous medical facilities have also been opened in Afghanistan. Before October 2001, twenty-six million people in Afghanistan did not have access to adequate medical care. For the most part, women could not see physicians because women were not permitted to be treated by men, and under the Taleban, with rare exceptions, only men were allowed to practice medicine.

All that has changed. General Franks said "the coalition members are operating three hospitals." The Koreans are operating a hospital. The Jordanians have opened a hospital which has seen more than one-hundred-thousand people, mostly women and children.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "Our goal for Afghanistan is for it to achieve effective self-government and self-sufficiency and never again become a haven for terrorists." The situation there is not, as Mr. Rumsfeld said, "perfectly tidy," but "the security situation in Afghanistan is the best it’s been probably in close to a quarter of a century."