Contrary to popular belief, the war to which I am referring is not the war in Iraq, but rather the forgotten front in the war on terrorism – Afghanistan.

Further, contrary to what many Americans still believe, Saddam Hussein was not behind the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, Hussein and Osama bin Laden hated each other – each branded the other as an infidel.

The Iraq war has served as nothing but a sad and costly distraction from the issue that deserves our attention.

The charismatic leader responsible for the mass murder of thousands of Americans still roams free today, mocking the United States for the sixth straight year after these atrocities.

In 2002, an initial rollback of the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan allowed the Bush administration to claim Operation Enduring Freedom a huge success, albeit without the head of Osama bin Laden.

Deep in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan, or even Pakistan, bin Laden breathed a sigh of relief.

I’m going to guess he didn’t just give up as soon as the bombing subsided.

This means he’s still operating with American troop presence.

Currently there are 23,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan with nearly 150,000 in Iraq.

As far as security goes, there are more police in Manhattan than there are troops in Afghanistan.

The White House paints a picture of an embattled bin Laden, crippled and powerless in a desolate cave.

Robert Grenier, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan, claims quite the opposite, that he is “living in a comfortable, though Spartan, compound somewhere in northern Pakistan.”

The cave illustration is used by the president to evoke a vivid image in the minds of Americans – suggesting they are safe and the president is doing his job.

This facade is not only false but also dangerous to the American people.

If more and more attacks have happened or been prevented since Sept. 11, it seems as if bin Laden isn’t as emasculated as our leaders would have us believe.

How better to stir the pot of hatred and frustration than to freshen up, drop another camera spot with a newly dyed beard and taunt the United States from afar?

The lawless nation in which bin Laden lives, although it does not receive as much attention as Iraq, is still virulent and our enemies resolute. Intelligence experts agree, through reporting in The New York Times, that the Taliban is regaining political and military presence.

This resurgence can be seen in the recent dispute with South Korea in Afghanistan, where 21 humanitarian aid workers were taken hostage and later ransomed. The final answer was that the South Koreans extracted their personnel.

Attacks on our troops are becoming more brazen and frequent, with military analysts claiming gunfights escalating fourfold in the past three years.

The war in Afghanistan is where our attention and military prowess should be aimed. The international community or Americans themselves have never criticized this war, unlike the war in Iraq, as being a futile quagmire.

By using the support of the United Nations, a new “Coalition of the Willing” and most importantly, upping the presence of the most advanced and deadly military in the world, we can save Afghanistan from becoming a failed state returned to Taliban rule.

It’s time the United States called in the marker from World War II, when Winston Churchill begged, “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”

With the same lesson, a credible Franklin Roosevelt led America to the defeat of the Axis powers during his war.

I can only hope Bush will assist in the impending defeat of al-Qaida in his.

Michael Stevenson is a State News columnist and member of the MSU College Democrats. Reach him at steve391@msu.edu.