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By Russ Castronovo (Editor), Susan Gillman (Editor)
by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
$18.45
$22
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Flickr / UK in Afghanistan
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According to NATO’s newly appointed chief civilian representative, 2010 in Afghanistan will see more violence and casualties, but will also mark a turning point in the fight against the Taliban.
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News coming out of Afghanistan claims that a United Nations envoy has held secret talks in Dubai with Taliban leaders to discuss peace terms. If confirmed, the meeting would be the first ever between the U.N. and senior Taliban members.
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AP / Ahmad Masood, pool
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Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has some sobering news for supporters of the U.S.-led intervention in his country: Even after eight years of war, it could be another decade before the Afghan military is able to take over security duties from the coalition, and even longer to wean it from its dependence on foreign aid.
Posted on Jan 28, 2010
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Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Army Sgt. David Alvarado
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America’s top brass in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, sat down for a talk with the Financial Times last week about his strategy in the South Asian nation, how long he thinks U.S. troops will remain there and the possibility of the Taliban’s participation in the Afghan government.
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Wikimedia Commons / Bjoertvedt
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His term as the United Nations’ official envoy to Afghanistan is up in March, and in his last address to the world body Kai Eide didn’t sound especially optimistic about the state of the country. In fact, Eide said Wednesday, if certain “negative trends” he sees at work “are not reversed,” the situation in Afghanistan could “become unmanageable.”
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AP / Farzana Wahidy
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Hamid Karzai is having issues in his second term as Afghanistan’s president. It seems that the Afghan parliament has nixed 17 of his 24 Cabinet nominees.
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Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office released a statement in which he said he “strongly condemns” a military operation involving “international forces”—one in a series that reportedly occurred over the weekend—in which at least eight Afghan schoolchildren were said to be among the civilian casualties.
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This may sound more like a press release from Captain Obvious than incisive strategic commentary from one of our nation’s top military leaders, but lest it be overlooked, Gen. Stanley McChrystal recommends that the U.S. capture Osama Bin Laden and push back on the Taliban as two crucial action items on America’s to-do list for Afghanistan.
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Something just doesn’t add up about the stated logic of sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, says Jamal Dajani, who has a theory about the president’s real reason for escalating the war.
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — After 30 years of failure, and thanks to the political opportunism of the current commander in chief, the Afghanistan war is still without end or logical purpose.
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He took his time to mull it over, and in a speech at West Point on Tuesday night President Barack Obama announced his decision about what course of action to take in Afghanistan, affirming reports that he plans to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to push back on the resurgent Taliban and to try to establish some semblance of stability in the war-scarred country.
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White House / Samantha Appleton
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Those who hoped that President Barack Obama would consider withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan anytime soon are likely to be disappointed, judging by the hints Obama dropped about his plans for America’s military involvement in the volatile South Asian nation.
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U.S. Army / Sgt. Matthew Moeller
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By William Pfaff — The best way to deal with an insurrection is not to go in the first place. The second-best way is to get out as quickly and gracefully as possible.
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AP / David Guttenfelder
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By Chris Hedges — American military commanders measure progress by the swelling size of the Afghan army, although the force is said to be poorly trained, sympathetic to the Taliban and the scourge of local populations.
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Still: AP via youtube.com
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced the unenviable task of trying to change U.S.-Pakistani relations for the better during her three-day diplomacy spree in the South Asian nation. However, it was unclear as her visit drew to a close whether she’d made any headway, as she herself acknowledged on Friday.
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By Garrison Keillor —
The former Marine officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned his Foreign Service post in Afghanistan because he feels the war is pointless and not worth dying for, deserves all the attention he’s gotten and more.
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bbc.co.uk
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United Nations officials said Wednesday that at least five U.N. workers and three Afghans were killed and nine others wounded by three Taliban militants, who were themselves shot dead during the attack at a private residence in Kabul, Afghanistan.
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If an athlete is caught cheating in the Olympics or another sports competition, that person is disqualified, and it is seen as a disgrace. In the case of the recent election in Afghanistan, however, cheating has been rewarded and even praised by no less than the president of the United States, says Link TV’s Jamal Dajani in this week’s “Mosaic Intelligence Report.”
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Ballots are being distributed to voting centers throughout Afghanistan for the runoff between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger from Round 1, Abdullah Abdullah, slated to take place on Nov. 7.
Posted on Oct 22, 2009
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www.iiu.edu.pk
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As Pakistan’s army continued battling militants in southern Waziristan on Tuesday, two suicide bombers set off explosions at Islamabad’s International Islamic University, killing themselves and four others and wounding 18, according to The Associated Press. Updated
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AP / K.M.Chaudary
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After recent militant attacks in Pakistan that killed about 150, the Pentagon is pushing forward with plans to send about $200 million in military aid—in the form of equipment and “services,” according to Reuters.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Eugene Robinson — Somebody explain this to me: The president of the United States wins the Nobel Peace Prize, and Rush Limbaugh joins with the Taliban in bitterly denouncing the award?
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chinadaily.com
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Although the Taliban apparently enjoys good funding these days, thanks in part to drug money, the BBC reported Monday that al-Qaida is struggling by comparison, according to “terrorist financing official” (?) David Cohen.
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AP / Abdullah Khan
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The death toll after four days of militant attacks in Pakistan rose past 100 following another deadly blast, this time in the Shangla district of the Swat Valley, where a car bomb exploded near a market early Monday afternoon.
Posted on Oct 12, 2009
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bbc.co.uk
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A Taliban attack Sunday morning on Pakistan’s army headquarters has pressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to warn about the waning authority of the Pakistani state in the face of violence by “extremists.” Security forces were later able to defeat the attackers and free 40 hostages.
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AP / Fraidoon Pooyaa
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While the Obama administration continues to mull over its options regarding America’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan, the United Nations Security Council has voted to urge “member states to contribute personnel, equipment and other resources” to the ongoing conflict.
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AP / Brennan Linsley
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The U.S. has been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years. To mark the anniversary, the Afghan Taliban asserted themselves via an Internet statement Wednesday, claiming they had—and have—no intention of attacking other countries, but they will continue to fight against Western colonizers as long as they occupy the country.
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Flickr / U.S. Army
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By Robert Scheer — There is no indication that any of the contending forces in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, are interested in bringing al-Qaida back. On the contrary, all the available evidence indicates that the Arab fighters are unwelcome and that it is their isolation from their former patrons that has led to their demise.
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AP / B.K. Bangash
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The United Nations World Food Program office in Islamabad, Pakistan, was a suicide bomber’s target Monday, and unfortunately it was a successful strike. The bomber was able to enter the building in the guise of a guard and set off 16 pounds of explosives during a busy noontime at the office, according to The New York Times.
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milwoman.com
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International efforts to expand Afghanistan’s security forces are being undermined by “spiraling increases” in violent deaths among the nation’s police officers as the eighth anniversary of the U.S. war approaches.
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — The Obama revolution, and there was the hope of one, might still succeed. But only if Barack Obama follows the model of the incredibly successful Reagan revolution and heeds the political base that made his presidency possible.
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U.S. Navy / MC1 Molly Burgess
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The situation has changed significantly since President Obama took office last winter and fixed his focus on Afghanistan, and these changes—including a disputed Afghan presidential election and deadly spikes in insurgent violence—may spell trouble for Obama’s initial strategy in that country, according to an assessment issued by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Updated
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Flickr/Army.mil
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Numerous historical examples have demonstrated that attempting to go to war in Afghanistan isn’t really the best plan, what with the tricky geography and all, yet here we are, eight years into just that very scenario. Along with the landscape-oriented issues, The Wall Street Journal has noted yet another reason that this war is dragging on without a clear end in sight.
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defenselink.mil
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There are already about 62,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and more may be sent to combat the Taliban and contain insurgent violence, according to Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said Tuesday that the next couple of weeks could be telling in terms of how many more troops the U.S. might deploy.
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Flickr / Carrie Hasselback
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Somewhere in Afghanistan there’s a statue of Buddha more than 1,000 feet long, according to the ancient journal of 7th century Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang. Dr. Zemaryalai Tarzi, an Afghan archeologist with a sense of adventure, believes the legend.
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Flickr / Army.mil
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Hey, so what exactly are we doing fighting in Afghanistan again? What’s the U.S. role, if any, in sorting out the recent, trouble-plagued Afghan presidential election? It’s not likely that this Los Angeles Times “primer” on Afghanistan is going to get to the more uncomfortable answers to these questions, but here’s what the paper has to say for starters.
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AP / Rahmat Gul
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The violence just hasn’t let up in Afghanistan in the nearly two weeks that have passed since the nation’s presidential election. The latest deadly episode came in the form of a Taliban suicide attack east of Kabul on Wednesday that killed 23 people, including Afghanistan’s deputy head of intelligence, Abdullah Langhmani.
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AP / David Guttenfelder
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By Robert Scheer — True, he doesn’t seem a bit like Lyndon Johnson, but the way he’s headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency. LBJ also had a progressive agenda in mind, but it was soon overwhelmed by the cost and divisiveness engendered by a meaningless, and seemingly endless, war in Vietnam.
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White House / Pete Souza
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General Stanley McChrystal, the top-ranking U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, on Monday issued his highly anticipated report about the status of the conflict on that troubled front, and his assessment of the situation doesn’t fully help President Obama’s cause in ramping up America’s Afghan war effort since he took office.
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U.S. Army / Sgt. Zach Otto
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After an initial bulk-up in the number of troops in Afghanistan earlier this year, the commander of NATO forces in that country is preparing to ask for 20,000 more international troops as part of the ongoing war against the perpetually resurgent Taliban.
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By William Pfaff — Instead of reading ecology and novels on his vacation, the president should read Charles de Gaulle, who ended the dreadful insurrection in Algeria. Obama and his advisers have a dramatic and ahistorical view of Afghanistan—that “There is no alternative to victory.”
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un.org
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On Wednesday, another large explosion was reported in Kandahar, Afghanistan—just a day after a spate of bombings killed more than 40 people in that city—as the outcome of last week’s election still hung in the balance.
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AP / Musadeq Sadeq
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Corruption rumors and threats of violence preceded last week’s Afghan presidential election, so it’s not surprising that similar concerns are cropping up after the fact.
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AP / Kevin Frayer
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Threats of violence kept large numbers of voters away from the polls in various parts of Afghanistan, and by closing time it was hard to say whether some officials’ declarations about the day’s success were warranted. But, thankfully, earlier warnings from the Taliban didn’t seem to materialize in the form of any major tragedies on Thursday.
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AP / Kevin Frayer
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Tensions continue to build before Thursday’s presidential election in Afghanistan. After a spate of violence in the capital city of Kabul on Tuesday, including a suicide car bombing that killed at least eight people and wounded 53, the government banned local news outlets from reporting any similar incidents on election day.
Posted on Aug 18, 2009
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nefafoundation.org
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Tribesmen in western Pakistan captured Pakistani Taliban spokesman Maulvi Said Muhammad, aka Maulvi Omar, and turned him over to authorities Tuesday, according to The New York Times.
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AP / Rahmat Gul
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This week’s presidential election in Afghanistan may not be the cleanest polling event, if the BBC’s findings about corruption and voting fraud are indicative of larger trends. The British news outlet reported Tuesday that bribery and bids to buy voting cards, combined with threats of violence from militant groups, could muck up the works come Thursday.
Posted on Aug 17, 2009
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AP / Saurabh Das
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With just a few days remaining before the presidential election in Afghanistan, Taliban operatives are trying to thwart voting by threatening to cut off the ink-stained fingers of those who go to the polls, according to Al Jazeera English. In Afghanistan, a finger marked with ink is a sign that one has voted.
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USMC / Staff Sgt. William Greeson
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By William Pfaff — It would be a great service to the American nation if Barack Obama would tell us what he himself thinks the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are about.
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U.S. Navy / MC1 Molly Burgess
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The Wall Street Journal claims the top American commander in Afghanistan stated that the Taliban has “gained the upper hand,” forcing a change in U.S. strategy. However, Gen. Stanley McChrystal says the paper mischaracterized his comments and he never meant to suggest that the Taliban is “winning.”
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