Byline: Jake Klonoski For The Register-Guard

It has been a tragic year in Afghanistan.

Record numbers of improvised explosive devices and suicide bombings have made the nation more dangerous for Afghan civilians and troops from the United States and other nations.

Daily

Poppy production and exports have hit record highs, with tens of millions of dollars flowing into the hands of enemies of the elected Afghan government.

High-profile attacks in Kabul and Kandahar aimed at undermining the faith of the populace in the government and 37 nations making up the International Stabilization and Assistance Force have killed many and freed hundreds of imprisoned militants.

Pakistan's commitment to the fight against insurgents has wavered as that government finalized a peace treaty with the Taliban that allows the insurgency a secure base to launch attacks against Afghanistan. President Pervez Musharraf, America's staunch Pakistani ally and recipient of tens of billions of U.S. aid, was forced from power, leaving a vacuum in the leadership of the only Muslim nation armed with nuclear weapons.

Tragic incidents in the last weeks have caused significant civilian casualties. These casualties have led to an outcry among some Afghans against international operations in their nation.

And al-Qaeda has declared a refocusing of effort in central Asia where, for seven years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the organization has continued to operate and organize with near impunity against the United States.

I was deployed to the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul in January, and returned home in early August. During my time there 126 coalition troops, most of them Americans, were killed and 615 were wounded fighting the Taliban. In the month of May, more coalition troops from the 37-nation ISAF alliance were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq - the first time that has occurred since the Iraq war began in 2003. This trend continued through June, July and August.

In an even more dispiriting development, during July, for the first time, more American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq - this despite a much lower number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan than in Iraq (roughly 33,000 vs. 146,000).

My job in Kabul involved planning the movement of close air support around the country in protection of the troops of many nations patrolling on the ground. Many times every day, I listened to radio calls for help from troops under fire, and worked with an outstanding NATO team to get planes to the firefight as quickly as possible.

Sometimes the planes got there in time, and the only casualties were among the insurgents.

Sometimes it was too late, and the next day the flags outside our headquarters building would be flying at half staff to honor the fallen. As spring moved toward what would be a terrible summer, the daily number of calls for help only increased. For many months it seemed as if the near-daily losses in Afghanistan were passing underneath the nation's radar. Day after day those flags at half staff would be the only remembrance of those lost that I saw outside of work.

Then, finally, in late spring I began hearing one of the political candidates, Sen. Barack Obama, focusing his speeches on the deteriorating conditions on the ground in Afghanistan, addressing the need for increased troop numbers, calling for a revision of the level and type of commitments from our allies, and urging wider training of the Afghan army.

In July I had the opportunity to see Obama's commitment to his words made real as he traveled widely through eastern Afghanistan, inspecting conditions in that most dangerous part of the country and reassuring American soldiers of the nation's commitment to their fight. I enjoyed the opportunity to meet Obama in Kabul and was gratified to hear his unwavering focus on the Afghan conflict and receive his personal reassurance that he was going to see the fight through to victory.

When I returned to the United States in August after the bloody summer, I expected to find the nation consumed with debating how to respond to the increasing death toll and threat in central Asia. Instead I was amazed to find public discussion focused on Paris Hilton and the nature of celebrity. As I reflected on the months of conflicts I had been a party to in Kabul and the many lives lost there, the tone of the national discourse increasingly offended and saddened me.

But in Denver, the first of the major political parties' conventions raised my hopes.

Sen. Joe Biden, in his speech accepting the vice presidential nomination, repeatedly called attention to "the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan" and to the fact that "al-Qaeda and the Taliban - the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 - have regrouped in those mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and are plotting new attacks." He went into several ways to address that growing danger and ended his speech with a prayer that God protect America's troops.

But it was Obama who again renewed my faith that the war in Afghanistan would not be forgotten when he declared strongly that he would "finish the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan" and continued on to address the conflict in Afghanistan in four other sections of his speech, mentioning Afghanistan, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, terrorists, nuclear proliferation and Osama bin Laden more than a dozen times. Overall, he devoted more than one-fifth of his acceptance speech to explaining how he would rebuild the military, disentangle American security from the Middle East, honor military families and veterans and win the war in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, the Republican convention in St. Paul did not match this focus.

In his acceptance speech, in roughly 3,800 words over almost an hour, not once did the word "Afghanistan" pass Sen. John McCain's lips. Not once did he thank our allies nor applaud the courage of the Afghan people. Not once did he praise the troops fighting there, honor veterans of the fight there, or remember the fallen in this, the worst year of the Afghan war.

Convention speeches are among the most-watched events of the election season - more than 39 million saw McCain's speech, and instead of using the speech in part to rally the nation to the toughest fight against terrorism in the world today, a war that is inflicting casualties faster than the fight in Iraq, there was a profound silence.

The attention given to the wording of a convention speech is so intense, the decision to ignore the war in Afghanistan and the soldiers there cannot be accidental. And while one speech will not win a war, no war, especially one as important and with so many losses as that in Afghanistan, should go unmentioned by a candidate who aspires to be commander in chief.

Add in Gov. Sarah Palin's speech of more than 3,000 words the night before, and still not one word, not one second, in either speech from either candidate was spent addressing a fight that has taken the lives of 588 Americans since 2001.

Not once was the word "Afghanistan" spoken by either candidate. It is still simply unbelievable to me.

President Bush responded this month to the worsening situation in Afghanistan by promising a significant increase in American forces committed to that fight as the forces in Iraq are being drawn down. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen commented to Congress that in Afghanistan, "We are running out of time." Yet still McCain has avoided addressing or even mentioning Afghanistan in recent weeks. How can this be justified?

Perhaps in the upcoming days, rather than disparaging community organizers as the McCain campaign has done repeatedly (full disclosure: My wife was a community organizer in inner-city Atlanta) or talking about lipstick on dogs or pigs, McCain might instead address the challenges ahead in Afghanistan, prepare the American people for the long fight there, and lay out a strategy for victory.

The American and Afghan people, the soldiers on the ground and veterans of the war, and those who will never come home deserve that much.