February 1, 2004 - It is the land of Kim and King of the Khyber Rifles; of Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn; the land where Alexander marched on his way to the plains of India. It is a land of military romance where armies marched and died in the vanities of the First and Second and Third Afghan Wars that ended the Nineteenth Century and commenced the Twentieth for the British Empire. It is the Northwest Frontier where Kipling wrote and Tommy died; littered with the bones of three thousand years of armies; where with the melting of the snow yet another army will march. This one is ours.

Somewhere, out there in the mountains where east meets west in the Khyber Pass, there is a six foot five inch tower of a man. He is our prey and when the snows of the Hindu Kush melt into torrents, the hunt for him begins anew when the American army launches its spring offensive. Very publicly, with great fanfare and confidence we have announced that his days are numbered and we will nab him “sometime this year”. We have told him we are coming as though the signals of the broadcasts will not reach into his mountain fastness. Do we really suppose that this Arab Scarlet Pimpernel; the man we seek here, there, and everywhere; will wait for us in Peshawar or Khost?

The Army’s Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker, told Congress last week that he needs 30,000 additional active duty troops, increasing the number of brigades from 33 to 48 to meet the demands placed on the army as he plans for troop rotations to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next three years. The offensive in Afghanistan won’t necessarily require more troops but orders have been cut to deploy equipment and supplies, he told the lawmakers. The Secretary of Defense has used his emergency powers to raise the active duty army 11,000 above the 482,000 authorized by Congress. Rumsfeld is not going to ask Congress to authorize more troops. To do so would surely cause a free wheeling debate not favored in an election year. He will use his emergency powers to meet this three year emergency.

Since 1945 Congress has abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to decide when and under what circumstances the United States goes to war. Now it is avoiding the responsibility to decide how much the nation will borrow and for what it will be spent in pursuit of the war waged by the Department of Defense. Washington has devolved into an area in which, like the Northwest Frontier, is dominated by tribal institutions; each dominated by a separate warlord; operating independently of each other giving only lip service to a central authority or a coordinated plan. It is an area into which the rule of law does not reach,