We must remember.

I’ll bet that if asked, any number of us could tell you exactly what is going on today in Iraq, but not too many would be able to answer the same question if asked about Afghanistan.

How many know that the Taliban has been on the offensive, or that the UN International Organization for Migration is saying approximately 3000 people have been uprooted, loosing their entire homes and fled the region because of new fighting between coalition forces and neo-Taliban insurgents

The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai has called for the people to be calm, swearing, “I swear to God, I'll bring security to you”. The coalition forces are working their tales off to bring peace to the country and some headway has been made. The US. Central Command has an article in their latest newsletter stating, “KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – The Afghanistan flag was raised over a remote outpost in the Korangal Valley May 7, bringing the promise of stability and national unity east into this turbulent region.” They are working diligently to insure this peace, but not without casualties.

We have a great coalition in Afghanistan, Canadian, Australian, British, French, Italian and Dutch forces working alongside our own forces and a plethora of special operations and they are doing their job. They often release reports of captured Taliban or al Qaeda operatives, which demonstrate they are working their tails off to keep peace to the region.

Michael Yon, presently embedded with Canadian military in Afghanistan, said in a release, Monday, May 22, Hiatus Corpus, that “The money from the massive opium harvest in 2006 will buy weapons and influence that will be used against us in the spring of 2007. The heroin will create thousands of new addicts twitching with crime to feed their habits. Among the fast growing groups of heroin users on American streets, 8th graders are making their presence known.”

That is a very prolific and eye-opening statement pertaining to the on-going drug battles within our country as well as a sad statement on what will be facing our troops soon in Afghanistan.

Everyone should stay on top of this action as well, it appears to be escalating and may escalate even more. There are quite a few sources, one I check daily is our government source for the area, Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan, Michael Yon’s dispatches from the area is another great source, Milblogs are another source and should be your primary source for military blogs from that area.