This just in: Finnish ISAF soldiers slated to serve with the Norwegian troops in Mazar-e-Sharif are protesting against the Norwegian policy of zero tolerance on alcohol. The Finns, accustomed to their time-honoured “2 Can Rule”, have taken the matter up with their commander, but the Norwegians refuse to budge.
In other news: Over 600,000 Afghans lack [...]
Archive for April, 2009
Breaking: Beer Row Threatens NATO Unity in Afghanistan
Posted in Afghanistan on April 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Afghanistan: Attacks on NGOs on the Rise
Posted in Afghanistan on April 9, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office has issued its quarterly data report. It’s a dismal read. During the unusually short winter, the number of monthly attacks never fell below the average 300, and now there’s a massive increase. Just SAF/RPG attacks on convoys and bases are up by more than 100 percent from 2008 Q1.
You can [...]
Iraq: Falluja in Lockdown
Posted in Iraq on April 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A series of bombings in Falluja has forced the police to put the city in lockdown, with schools closed, shops shuttered and a curfew in place, Reuters reports. I gotta admit I’m at a loss here. So little information, not to mention analysis, is coming out of Iraq these days that it’s practically impossible to [...]
ICRC Torture Report Released
Posted in Uncategorized on April 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
For those just tuning in, the ICRC report on the treatment of fourteen “high value detainees” in U.S. custody is now online, thanks to the New York Review of Books.
Whether you choose to accept the report as an accurate account of what these guys went through, or to treat it as an expression of taqiyya [...]
Iraq: The Shape of Things to Come?
Posted in Iraq on April 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, seven car bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing some 37 people and wounding more than 100. This may or may not be a portent of things to come. But the attacks are troubling, to say the least. Whether they were executed by disaffected SoI members, recently released insurgents or Baathist holdouts is beside the point. [...]
Where’s the Strategy in “Af-Pak” Strategy?
Posted in Afghanistan on April 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Towards the end of 7 Deadly Scenarios, after 290 pages of doomsday stuff, Andrew Krepinevich offers a few choice words on strategy:
There are numerous barriers to crafting good defense strategy [...] One is the government’s tendency to equate strategy with a list of desirable outcomes. Such lists involve little or no discussion of what obstacles [...]
Iraq: The Coming SoI/U.S. War
Posted in Iraq on April 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It begins:
An American military aircraft opened fire Thursday night on Sons of Iraq members who were allegedly spotted placing a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday.
See also: “Iraq: The Jerry-Rigged Peace”.
Afghanistan: Asia Society Recommends Dumping GWOT and OEF
Posted in Afghanistan on April 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s a must-read for the weekend: a new report by the Asia Society Independent Task Force on Afghanistan-Pakistan, co-chaired by Thomas Pickering and Barnett Rubin. In the terrifyingly slim body of well thought-out papers on “Af-Pak”, this is among the best. It pretty much says all the right things, including:
Stop talking about GWOT and focus [...]
