Reuters:
U.S. President Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday to ‘finish the job’ of an unpopular and costly eight-year war in Afghanistan, and officials said he could announce an increase of around 30,000 troops next week.
Okay. If by “finishing the job” he means achieving the core goals he set in his March White Paper — “disrupting terrorist [...]
Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category
On ‘Finishing the Job’ in Afghanistan
Posted in Afghanistan on November 25, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Afghanistan: Recommended Reading
Posted in Afghanistan on November 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m going to recommend a couple of things that y’all should read, ay-sap. One you can download for free; the other you need to pay for. One you can digest pretty quickly; the other is academic and requires a little effort.
The first one is the new Oxfam Afghan poll (sort of), titled The Cost of [...]
Afghan Elections: The Untold Story
Posted in Afghanistan on November 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
They may have looked like a farce, but at the local level the Afghan elections actually did change the balance of power, and in a relatively peaceful manner, Noah Coburn and Anna Larson write in an excellent new AREU briefing paper. Their conclusions:
Local elections matter and need to be prioritised by both national and international [...]
Obama’s Options Dwindle as Abdullah Bows Out
Posted in Afghanistan on November 1, 2009 | 7 Comments »
So he quits.
I’ll be very interested to hear what Obama has to say about Afghanistan when he finally lays out his strategy, presumably next week. How does he explain a troop increase to bolster a COIN campaign when the host government clearly has lost its legitimacy? Or will he use this as an opportunity for [...]
Afghanistan: Karzai + Karzai = 0
Posted in Afghanistan on October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, has been on the CIA payroll for much of the past eight years, The New York Times reports, citing current and former American officials:
The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the C.I.A. is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, [...]
Of Predators and Suicide Bombers
Posted in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Pakistan on October 27, 2009 | 4 Comments »
There is a remarkable statistic in Jane Mayer’s superb piece [abstract] on the Predator war in The New Yorker:
It appears to have taken sixteen missile strikes, and fourteen months, before the C.I.A. succeeded in killing [Baitullah Mehsud]. During this hunt, between two hundred and seven and three hundred and twenty-one additional people were killed, depending [...]
‘American Departure Would Seal the Region’s Fate’
Posted in Afghanistan, Pakistan on October 23, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Ahmed Rashid:
[...] Pakistan is far less resilient than it was a few years ago. Even as Pakistani officials bluntly criticize Holbrooke for linking Afghanistan and Pakistan in his ‘AfPak’ strategy, some Pakistanis already see a chronic ‘Afghanization’ of their nation. Current realities include a collapse of law and order in parts of the country, state [...]
Department of Tasting One’s Own Medicine: Pakistan Urges NATO to ‘Seal the Border’
Posted in Afghanistan, Pakistan on October 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
You gotta be kidding me:
As government forces pressed ahead with the Waziristan offensive, the military called on the NATO troops in Afghanistan to seal the border ‘to prevent cross-border movement and flow of weapons.’
Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) Chairman General Tariq Majid made the call during talks with Britain’s Chief of Defence Staff, [...]
Afghanistan: Important Or Not?
Posted in Afghanistan, Pakistan on September 28, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Some great stuff I don’t have time to comment on right now (am putting the finishing touches on a story about a Finnish ISAF soldier wounded by friendly fire in 2006):
In the September issue of the CTC Sentinel, Anne Stenersen examines why the Afghan Taliban are unlikely to attack targets in the West. Food for [...]
Afghanistan: The Limits of CT
Posted in Afghanistan on September 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’ve poked fun at Fred and Kimberly Kagan many times in the past, so when they actually come up with something worth our attention, I feel I owe them a nod. Say what you will about the conclusions of their new PowerPoint on Afghanistan, you have to admit they do get down to specifics. For [...]
