Afghanistan
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KABUL --- Taliban bombers equipped with suicide vests and automatic rifles attacked a hotel and a guesthouse in central Kabul Friday, killing at least 15 people, including four Indian nationals, officials said. A series of explosions occurred at the City Centre shopping complex and the Safi Landmark hotel, about 300 metres from the Interior Ministry, said Abdul Ghafar Sayedzadar, a senior police official.
Full Story-http://www.military.com/news/article/taliban-attack-kabul-hotels-kill-15.html
With al-Qa'ida dispersed, Afghanistan, though a human tragedy, doesn't matter much to the US or its allies. Rather than allow the Afghan mission to slide into nation-building, the Obama administration should begin withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan.
Full Article-http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2010/01/05/afghan_war_has_stopped_making_sense_97465.html
Although the president enjoyed an upsurge in support for his Afghanistan policy after his speech, Americans again are growing more pessimistic about his plan to escalate the war. According to Rasmussen Reports:
Full Article-http://utahwearechange.org/tag/doug-bandowalthough/
Monday’s revelation from Defense Secretary Robert Gates that "I think it has been years" since the US government has had any solid information about Osama bin Laden should come as no surprise to readers of Antiwar.com, which has been questioning the rationale for the global war on terrorism ever since it was a twinkle in Dick Cheney’s eye. Gates also commented that US intelligence believes that the fugitive terrorists might well be moving about in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The "where’s Waldo" narrative provided by Gates is somewhat shocking in light of the billions of dollars that have been spent in the search for the slippery Saudi, but it is even more significant in that it completely undercuts the Barack Obama Administration’s case for increasing the number of American troops in Afghanistan.
Full Aricle-http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2009/12/09/no-sama-bin-laden/
BRUSSELS - NATO's top official said Friday that at least 25 countries will send a total of about 7,000 additional forces to Afghanistan next year "with more to come," as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to bolster allied resolve. "With the right resources, we can succeed," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference after allied foreign ministers met with representatives of non-NATO countries that have forces in Afghanistan. Clinton, who participated in the session, also was making a pitch to a NATO-only meeting later Friday for further support of the U.S. war plan.
Saying it’s time for Republicans to do more than “take pot shots at ACORN,” freshman Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz will call on President Barack Obama on Monday to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan.
The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said.
Full Article-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111118432.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Violence and instability in Afghanistan continue to rage in the form of an organic insurgency shaped by local identities, networks, and interests. Operating under the nebulous rubric of the Taliban, the insurgents in Afghanistan have evolved in sophistication, lethality, and geographic scope in recent years. While the presence of transnational radical Islamists led by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan augments the tactical and operational capabilities of the insurgents, myriad factors help fuel the violence that confronts the American-led Coalition. The reach of regional state actors, for instance, impacts the insurgency in Afghanistan. The machinations of Afghanistan’s neighbors, in essence, define its geopolitics. Pakistan’s impact on Afghan politics, society and the insurgency receives the most attention. Another influential actor in Afghanistan that is drawing more attention of late, however, but whose role in Afghan affairs is far less understood, is Iran.
Full Article- http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35708&tx_ttnews[backPid]=26&cHash=33b7fc4e83
It has been an interesting week. President Barack Obama is about to approve a strategy of holding urban centers in Afghanistan while surrendering the rest of the country to the Taliban. Someone should tell him that something like that called "strategic hamlets" was tried and failed in Vietnam. Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu tells Obama to go to hell on freezing settlements so Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rewards him by praising his "unprecedented concessions" and blames the Palestinians for not talking peace. Congress also demonstrated that it knows who to blame by overwhelmingly passing a resolution condemning the UN’s Goldstone report which documented Israeli atrocities in Gaza last January. And there have also been more harsh words and resolutions coming out of Washington about Iran from numerous parties, heightening concerns that another war is coming.
It’s not exactly the change that we Americans voted for a year ago, is it? What this country needs is a new direction, possibly driven by a new foreign policy lobby that recognizes that while all nations have an inalienable right to be treated fairly by the United States, Washington has a clear and compelling responsibility to avoid involvement in other countries’ quarrels so it can put its own people and interests first. Though "America First" might sound like a crude reversion to some forms of 1930s nationalism, in reality the lobby could spearhead a withdrawal from empire in reaction to the American people’s having been sold down the river by a succession of politicians of both parties who have adhered to an agenda that is completely hypocritical, blindly globalist, and persistently interventionist. The inside-the-beltway political class has grown fat on empire, shielded from the consequences of its own folly and never held accountable for its sins, largely because both parties adhere to the same basic policies, albeit with slightly different packaging. The sorry result has not benefited the American people in any way unless one is a defense contractor or a Wall Street banker or a politician writing a self-exculpatory book.
Full Article- http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2009/11/04/a-manifesto-for-x-street/
Matthew Hoh, the first US government official to formally resign his post because of objections to America's course in Afghanistan, makes a compelling case that America has lost its strategic sensibilities in this war which President Obama has adopted as "the good war".
In this Al Jazeera/Riz Kahn Show interview above, the former military and foreign service officer articulates what some of us on the outside have been saying about America's engagement in Afghanistan -- there is confusion about mission, a lack of focus on al Qaeda, a muddled picture of the contours and motivations of the Taliban, and embrace of a government that is not liked in many parts of the country. Hoh argues, along similar but more informed lines that I have, that we are embedded in the middle of a civil war.
Read more about Matthew Hoh in this fascinating piece by the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung.
A wise veteran Arab intelligence hand said Afghanistan is now tailor-made for deals with the principal tribal chiefs designed to detach them from the Taliban they fear more than U.S. and NATO troops.
Tribal maps are more important than provincial demarcations under a despised central government. The deals would cost several hundreds of millions of dollars, he said, not the tens of billions that are being wasted on an unwinnable war.
With much experience dealing with Afghanistan when the mujahedeen guerrillas were fighting Soviet occupation troops in the 1980s, and again with the Taliban regime when it seized power in 1996 and before it got kicked out by the U.S. invasion in 2001, the former Arab intelligence chief says it may still be possible to suborn lukewarm Taliban supporters into a compromise coalition.
The 1893 Durand Line, named after the then-foreign secretary of British India, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, and co-signed by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan, drew an imaginary 1,610-mile border that artificially divides the same tribes.
It was part of the "Great Game" of nations designed by the British Empire to contain Russian expansionism. The 100-year agreement expired in 1993. A more realistic division would keep the same tribes together in a long-overdue renegotiation.
This is more important than redoing the Afghan presidential election at a time when President Hamid Karzai is not only known to have stolen it, but, more seriously, has a drug-dealing brother tarred and feathered by a CIA-connection brush.
President Obama presumably has studied the history of the Vietnam negotiations. They began shortly after the February 1968 Tet Offensive, hailed as a communist victory by the Western media but seen as a defeat by the postwar memoirs of North Vietnamese generals.
Viet Cong troops attacked 27 cities and towns simultaneously but were repulsed in each case with huge losses (45,000). Hopefully, Mr. Obama has talked with John Negroponte, a Vietnamese-speaking young diplomat who pioneered the secret negotiating track as a Kissinger scout. Mr. Negroponte also was the first director of national intelligence, in charge of 16 intelligence agencies and 100,000 people, with a budget of $50 billion.
On-and-off talks took place over the next four years, interspersed with military action, e.g., the incursions into Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnam's supply lines and a major South Vietnamese offensive without U.S. involvement.
Finally, Henry Kissinger announced Oct. 26, 1972, "Peace is at hand." In an interview this reporter conducted with Ho Chi Minh's successor, Pham Van Dong, it soon became clear that North Vietnam and the U.S. read the peace accords differently.
This led to the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi, which in turn produced the revised agreements that were signed in Paris a month later on Jan. 23, 1973. Two more months saw the last U.S. soldier out of Vietnam. South Vietnam held its own for two more years - until the U.S. Congress yanked the rug out from under our allies and cut off any further military assistance.
Nor is there a fast track to peace in Afghanistan. As President Reagan's Secretary of State George Shultz said last week, "Initial military successes by the U.S. and the coalition forces were compromised by an attempt to create an Afghanistan that has never previously existed - one with a centralized government and a strong national army. Any future approach must recognize the fact that Afghanistan is a bottom-up, rather than top-down, country, and thus change must be instituted on a local rather than a national level."
With a majority of the American people against any widening of the war with more blood and treasure, the best card Mr. Obama has in hand at this time is to make deals with some of the major tribal leaders who don't approve of the way the Taliban enforces its feudal religious writ by cowing the rest of the population. Anyone suspected of cooperating with U.S. and NATO forces is dragged out and beheaded or shot in front of villagers.
The CIA and U.S. Special Forces - together 410 men - with a helping hand from Russian intelligence, liberated Afghanistan in Oct. 2001. Taliban regrouped in Pakistan's tribal areas. Bankrolled by the opium poppy trade, they rearmed and went back into Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army, under U.S. prodding, tried to dislodge Taliban from their safe havens but failed. Now, stung by Taliban's brazen attacks close to Islamabad, the army has launched a major offensive and met with initial successes.
So this is no time to be accusing the Pakistani intelligence service, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton coyly suggested on a visit to Pakistan last week, of concealing the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
This would be a propitious time, working with Pakistani intelligence, to contact major Afghan tribal chiefs and work out the kind of deals that the former Arab intelligence chief was discussing. They must be made to understand that NATO and U.S. forces are not there to occupy Afghanistan and want to leave as soon as we are reasonably certain that al Qaeda will not be allowed back. What kind of government the Afghans wish to give themselves should be no concern of Mr. Obama and the allies.
Tribal loyalties are much stronger than the shaky Afghan nation-state. The U.S. government urgently needs to upgrade its knowledge of the dominant Pashtun tribe. It was one of the keys to the Bush administration's success in 2001. It is still a key, this time for a successful exit for 42 nations that don't belong there. And to make sure al Qaeda does not return.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
From http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/02/nation-state-nonstarter/...
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, facing a major new setback to his goals in Afghanistan as he weighs whether to send more troops, bluntly warned the country's leader Monday to get serious about eradicating official corruption and developing a stable government.
Obama administration officials have a more difficult job in pressing for reforms after election officials in Kabul canceled a scheduled runoff this weekend and declared President Hamid Karzai the winner of a new five-year term. The decision, more than two months following a fraud-tainted election, came after former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah bowed out of the race on Sunday, saying the government-appointed election commission was biased in favor of Karzai.
The outcome left a shadow over Karzai and roused anti-war voices in Washington. Administration officials termed the end of the election uncertainty a step forward for Afghanistan. But it nonetheless could leave Obama more hard-pressed to justify major troop increases that American military officials have recommended to buttress the U.S. and allied effort to battle Islamic militants.
Obama will decide in coming weeks on the request for up to 40,000 additional troops, which would make for a U.S. deployment of more than 100,000, in addition to nearly 40,000 from other Western nations.
In his unusual phone call to Karzai on Monday, Obama said he stressed that the U.S. and its allies wanted to continue helping Afghanistan, but that "this has to be a point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter" in Afghanistan's governance, security and internal and international relations.
"He assured me that he understood the importance of this moment," Obama said. "But as I indicated to him, the proof is not going to be in words; it's going to be in deeds."
Administration officials signaled that the call was part of a new campaign to help reshape Karzai's image and that of his government.
While the full details of this effort has not yet been decided, some administration officials are arguing in private meetings that Karzai should be pressured to set up an anti-corruption commission that would seek to exclude dishonest Afghans from government, a White House official said.
As well, some officials would like to see members of the opposition receive government appointments from Karzai in order to give the Afghan government broader acceptance.
Some officials in Washington are also arguing that Karzai should be pushed to make a few arrests of high-profile corrupt officials immediately, in hopes of helping restore public trust, the official said.
But some current and former officials agree that any effort to purge deeply ingrained Afghan corruption faces formidable obstacles. For example, some say, the high-profile arrests could backfire and further undermine confidence if the government didn't carry out prosecutions successfully.
Ronald Neumann, who was ambassador to Afghanistan during the Bush administration, said that after decades of war, many Afghans are uncertain whether they will have a job tomorrow, much less a pension. "So the attitude becomes that you take what you can get, when you get it," he said.
Neumann says he believes that the United States can gradually limit the level of corruption in Afghanistan by quietly urging Karzai to keep certain officials out of his government. But he said the United States should not seek to install any of its own choices, since "from Vietnam to Iraq, we have a dismal record of picking officials."
Neumann was nonetheless skeptical that such moves would have much impact on ordinary Afghans' view of their government, which he said was much more shaped by events in their daily experience, such as whether local police demand bribes.
The election turmoil has also buoyed war critics who oppose additional troops and are likely to use the development to exert new pressure the administration's lengthy review of its Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said that the "deeply flawed election in Afghanistan is just one more reason to question our current misguided strategy, which relies too much on military force and partnerships with corrupt government officials and security forces." Some conservatives, too, raised questions about Karzai's continuing credibility.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said Karzai should have yielded to pressure to replace election officials to ensure that the election was fair. "The fact that he didn't means he's not to be trusted and is a detriment rather than an asset to the United States," Rohrabacher said.
U.S. military officials have been arguing that public trust in the government is key to the counter-insurgency strategy they have plotted to beat the Taliban and al-Qaida members still in Afghanistan.
Military officials insist at the same time that it is important to have realistic expectations about the Afghan government, and to recognize that any improvements aren't likely to come overnight.
"The election wasn't going to turn a less than perfect government into a shining example of democracy," said an American defense official. "This is a journey."
Both civilian and military officials still hold out hope for a deal to bring some elements of Abdullah's coalition into the government. Though Abdullah now appears to have little leverage, Karzai stands to win points with foreign supporters by adding him, or at least some of his supporters, to the government.
The election panel concluded it had the authority to cancel Saturday's scheduled runoff because the constitution states that a runoff should be between two candidates.
"If one candidate isn't ready to participate in the election, it is the mandate of the Independent Election Commission to declare the winner, and we did so today," commission Chairman Azizullah Lodin told a packed news conference.
The commission also considered the expense and security risks of holding a vote during an escalating Taliban insurgency, electoral officials said. "Why should people sacrifice their lives for an election when the result is already known before it is conducted?" said Zekria Barakzai, the panel's deputy chief electoral officer.
Barakzai acknowledged he was "totally disappointed" about the election process. He said the commission would be studying what went wrong in order to avoid the same mistakes during next year's provincial elections.
Abdullah aides claimed that the commission didn't have the right to cancel the runoff, raising the possibility of a legal challenge.
U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes as fraudulent following the Aug. 20 election. That left Karzai just short of the 50 percent threshold required for an outright win.
At first, Karzai resisted going to a second round against Abdullah. He maintained that the irregularities were not as severe as claimed, and that he had received more than 50 percent of the vote.
Fearing that Karzai's government would not be seen as legitimate, U.S. and other Western officials leaned heavily on the president to consent to a second round of voting. But neither the U.S. nor the U.N. wanted to risk more violence for a vote with just one candidate.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who flew to Kabul on Monday for a surprise visit, welcomed the decision to forego a runoff vote and congratulated Karzai on a second term.
"Afghanistan now faces significant challenges and the new president must move swiftly to form a government that is able to command the support of both the Afghan people and the international community," Ban said in a statement.
Karzai's aides declined to discuss the president's plans, saying that he would address a news conference Tuesday. Previously they had indicated that Karzai was willing to entertain the idea of a coalition government, but only after he was formally declared president.
In the war-weary capital, many expressed relief that the painful election was over. Amid fears of violence, business declined sharply at businesses such as Mubin Jamshidi's car dealership. The 35-year-old merchant said that without a clearer picture of the future almost no one was prepared to put down the money to buy a car.
"I'm so glad right now because our president is elected," Jamshidi said. "But I'm still waiting to see what happens in the next few days."
© Copyright 2009 Mclatchy -Tribune News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan. Full Story
BRUSSELS -- There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory.
Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed.
The commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the extra forces are needed to implement a new strategy that focuses on protecting civilians and depriving the militants of popular support in a country where tribal militias may be Taliban today and farmers tomorrow.
The White House said Tuesday that President Barack Obama has nearly finished gathering information and advice on how to proceed in Afghanistan, where bombings killed eight more American troops. With October now the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the war, many experts question the need for more troops.
"The U.S. and its allies already have ample numbers and firepower to annihilate the Taliban, if only the Taliban would cooperate by standing still and allowing us to bomb them to smithereens," said Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, and one-time platoon leader in Vietnam.
"But the insurgents are conducting the war in ways that do not play to (allied) strengths."
The Taliban rebels are estimated to number no more than 25,000. Ljubomir Stojadinovic, a military analyst and guerrilla warfare expert from Serbia, said that although McChrystal's reinforcements would lift the ratio to 20-1 or more, they would prove counterproductive.
"It's impossible to regain the initiative by introducing more foreign forces, which will only breed more resentment and more recruits for the enemy," he said. "The Soviets tried the exact same thing in Afghanistan in the 1980s with disastrous results."
McChrystal's defenders say the U.S. has learned from Soviets' mistakes. At his instruction, NATO troops are increasingly abandoning heavy-handed tactics.
"In the end this (conflict) cannot be solved by military means alone, and in that sense a precise figure of Taliban fighters is not the point," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai.
The U.S. says it's already adjusting its strategy to shift the focus from hunting down and killing Taliban fighters to protecting civilians - in some cases allowing insurgent units to remain untouched if they are not deemed an imminent threat.
McChrystal has also insisted that ground commanders use airpower only as a last resort and when they are absolutely sure civilians are not at risk. As a career Special Forces officer, McChrystal is likely to use small maneuverable units rather than large, heavily armed formations.
Also, experts say guerrilla numbers are not the most important factor in a counterinsurgency campaign. Instead, the number of U.S. troops depends on more complex calculations, including the size and location of the population, and the extent of the training effort for the Afghan security forces.
Appathurai said the goals of the Afghanistan strategy are key to determining how many forces are required. The goal is to have enough troops in populated areas to protect the citizenry and to provide the forces needed to train the Afghans.
In addition, while there may be as many as 25,000 Taliban, it is not a monolithic group like an army, with a clear chain of command that has to be confronted soldier for soldier. Instead, it is a scattered and diverse mix of insurgents, some more ideologically motivated than others.
There are currently about 104,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including about 68,000 Americans. Afghan security forces consist of 94,000 troops supported by a similar number of police, bringing the total Allied force to close to 300,000 members.
The 12-1 ratio may be misleading because two-thirds of the Allied force is made up of Afghans, who lack the training and experience. The Taliban usually fight in small, cohesive units made up of friends and fellow clansmen. A more meaningful ratio, then, might be 4-1 or 5-1.
Historically in guerrilla wars, security forces have usually had at least a 3-1 advantage.
At the height of the U.S. ground involvement in South Vietnam in 1968, the 1.2 million American troops and their allies outnumbered the Communist guerrillas by about 4-1. French forces in the 1945-54 Indochina war numbered about 400,000 men, only a slight numerical advantage against the rebels.
In a more recent campaign, Russia's Chechen war in 1999-2000, Russian troops held a 4-1 advantage over the insurgents.
Publicly, NATO and U.S. officials have been tightlipped about Taliban strength, arguing the guerrillas, split into a number of semiautonomous factions, regularly slip in and out of Afghanistan from Pakistan - making numbers a matter of guesswork.
But several officers at NATO headquarters in Brussels say the alliance does have reasonably accurate estimates of the number of enemy combatants its troops are facing in Afghanistan.
"The internal figure used for planning purposes is 20,000 fighters, with several more thousand auxiliaries - mainly members of tribal militias, clans, and semi-criminal gangs," said a senior officer based at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He asked not to be identified under standing regulations.
Another senior official - a representative of a non-NATO nation based at alliance headquarters - gave a similar number.
This official added that enemy numbers varied widely over time, depending on the season and other factors. "When the poppy is good, they stay home. When the poppy is bad, they take up guns," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Recent U.S. government estimates have also put the number of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan at about 25,000.
Sometimes remaining small gives guerrillas certain advantages. British forces in Northern Ireland found it relatively easy to monitor and penetrate the Irish Republican Army when its ranks were swollen in the 1970s, but had a tougher time once the IRA slashed staff and regrouped into secretive four-person units.
Some analysts suggest that a NATO force much larger than the one under consideration would be needed to subdue the Taliban.
"The ratio of friendly to enemy forces would be a crucial aspect only if you could actually get at the enemy. But with an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms and hides among the population, that's very hard to do," said retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who helped oversee the "surge" of U.S. forces into Iraq in 2007-2008.
"The crucial aspect in this case is the ratio of security force to population - this is much more relevant," he said. "This would require one security person to every 50 people. In a country of about 32 million, this means about 600,000 security personnel would be needed to clamp it down."
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
KABUL -- Gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital early Wednesday, killing 12 people - including six U.N. staff - officials said. The U.S. Embassy said one of the U.N. dead was American.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the early morning attack, saying it was meant as an assault on the upcoming presidential election.
Later, a rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Another slammed into the grounds of the luxury Serena Hotel, which is favored by many foreigners. The device failed to explode but filled the lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to an Afghan witness who asked that his name not be used for security reasons.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "an inhuman act" and called on the army and police to strengthen security around all international institutions.
A security guard working nearby said the attackers were wearing police uniforms. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't supposed to talk to media.
U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said six U.N. staff were killed and nine other U.N. employees were injured in the assault, which began about dawn in the Shar-e-Naw area of the city. Terrified guests scurried from the building during the assault - some screaming for help and others jumping from upper floors as flames engulfed part of the three-story building.
Afghan police and U.N. officials said 12 people in all were killed, including the U.N. staff, three attackers, two security guards and an Afghan civilian. The bodies of the attackers were taken out of the house and sent for autopsies, said Gul Mohammad, an officer at the scene.
It was not immediately known how the victims were killed or how the fire started, but witnesses said they heard prolonged gunfire ringing from the house before police arrived at the scene. It also was not immediately clear whether there were any other attackers besides the three killed.
Police were seen pulling the charred body of what appeared to be a woman from a second-floor bedroom. One officer carried an injured German man by piggyback away from the scene.
A U.S. Embassy statement said an American was killed but did not identify the victim by name.
Edwards said officials were trying to account for several other U.N. workers who were staying at the guest house. He did not know their nationalities but said they were non-Afghans.
"This has clearly been a very serious incident for us," Edwards said. "We've not had an incident like this in the past."
Edwards said the U.N. would have to evaluate "what this means for our work in Afghanistan." The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, prompted the U.N. to pull out of Iraq for several years.
A security guard, Noor Allah, said he saw a woman screaming for help in English from a second story window and watched as terrified guests leapt from windows. Afghan police using ladders rescued at least one wounded foreigner.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on the guest house and the Serena in a telephone call to The Associated Press, saying three militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the assault.
He said three days ago the Taliban issued a statement threatening anyone working on the Nov. 7 runoff election between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah.
"This is our first attack," he said.
Afghans vote Nov. 7 in a second round election after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot, determining widespread fraud. That pushed Karzai's totals below the 50 percent threshold needed for a first round victory in the 36-candidate field.
The Taliban warned Afghans to stay away from the polls or risk attacks. Dozens of people were killed in Taliban attacks during the August balloting, helping drive down turnout.
Mir Ahmed Formoly, 64, who lives near the guest house, said he heard the commotion and went outside where he saw muzzle flashes in the early morning light.
"I was so scared," he said. I went back inside the house."
He said gunfire and explosions lasted about two hours, punctuated by shouts and screams.
Mohammad Ayub, a shopkeeper who lives a few doors down from the attacked house, said he heard gunfire shortly before dawn. He assumed at first that it was an attack on a house belonging to relatives of President Karzai nearby, then saw that it was a different building.
"It was early morning, but I didn't have a watch on to know when. It was dark. Shooting started around this private guest house. I heard some shouts coming from inside the house," Ayub said.
"I heard boom! boom! several times. The fighting went on inside for about 10 or 15 minutes before the police came," he said.
The guesthouse attack was one of a number of major assaults in the capital, including several in recent weeks.
Among the others:
- Oct. 28: Gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide vests storm a Kabul guest house, killing 12 people, including six U.N. staff. Two rockets target the luxury Serena Hotel and one strikes close to the presidential palace, with no casualties.
- Oct. 8, a suicide car bomber detonates his vehicle outside the Indian Embassy, killing 17 people - mostly civilians - and wounding at least 76 more. The Afghan Foreign Ministry hints at Pakistani involvement - a charge Pakistan denies.
- Sept. 17: A suicide car bomber kills six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians on one of Kabul's main roads.
- Aug. 15: A suicide car bomber strikes near the front gate of NATO's headquarters, killing at least seven people and wounding nearly 100.
- July 7, 2008: A suicide car bomb detonates at the gates of the Indian Embassy, killing more than 60 people and wounding around 150.
- April 27, 2008: Militants firing rockets and automatic rifles attack a ceremony marking Afghanistan's victory over Soviet occupation in the 1980s, killing three and wounding eight. Three gunmen are also killed.
- Jan. 15, 2008: Militants storm the Serena Hotel in a coordinated assault that kills seven.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
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A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."
While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"
Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. "I recognize the career implications, but it wasn't the right thing to do," he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.
"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
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"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."
But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.
Full Story- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR200910...
KABUL – Separate helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans in insurgent-wracked Afghanistan on Monday, the U.S. military said. It was one of the deadliest days of the war for U.S. troops.
In the first crash, a chopper went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight with insurgents, killing 10 Americans — seven troops and three civilians working for the government. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.
In a separate incident in the south, two other U.S. choppers collided while in flight, killing four American troops and wounding two more, the military said.
U.S. authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province's Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.
U.S. forces also reported the death of two other American troops a day earlier: one in a bomb attack in the east, and another who died of wounds sustained in an insurgent attack in the same region. The deaths bring to at least 46 the number of U.S. troops who have been killed in October.
The deaths come as U.S. officials debate whether to send tens of thousands more troops to the country and the Afghan government scrambles to organize a Nov. 7 runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah from an August vote that was sullied by massive ballot-rigging. President Barack Obama's administration is hoping the runoff will produce a legitimate government. Another flawed election would cast doubt on the wisdom of sending more troops to support a weak government tainted by fraud.
On Monday, Abdullah called for election commission chairman Azizullah Lodin to be replaced within five days, saying he has "no credibility."
Lodin has denied accusations he is biased in favor of Karzai, and the election commission's spokesman has already said Lodin cannot be replaced by either side.
Abdullah made the demand in a news conference during which he spelled out a list of what he said were "minimum conditions" for holding a fair second round of voting, including the firing of any workers implicated in fraud and the suspension of several ministers he said had been campaigning for Karzai before the official campaigning period began Sunday.
Abdullah did not say what would happen if his demands were not met. "I reserve my reaction if we are faced with that unfortunate situation," he said.
This has been the deadliest year for international and U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban. Fighting spiked around the presidential vote in August, and 51 U.S. Soldiers died that month — the deadliest for American forces in the eight-year war.
Earlier this month, insurgents killed eight American troops in an attack on a pair of isolated U.S. outposts in the eastern village of Kamdesh near the Pakistan border. That was the heaviest U.S. loss of life in a single battle since July 2008, when nine American Soldiers were killed in a raid on an outpost in Wanat in the same province.
"These separate tragedies today underscore the risks our forces and our partners face every day," Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the NATO-led coalition, said Monday. "Each and every death is a tremendous loss for the family and friends of each service member and civilian. Our grief is compounded when we have such a significant loss on one day."
U.S. military spokeswoman Elizabeth Mathias said coalition forces had launched an operation to recover the wreckage of the helicopter that was downed in the west.
She said the aircraft was leaving the site of a joint operation with Afghan forces when it went down.
The joint force had "searched a suspected compound believed to harbor insurgents conducting activities related to narcotics trafficking in western Afghanistan," NATO said in a statement. "During the operation, insurgent forces engaged the joint force and more than a dozen enemy fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium — the raw ingredient in heroin — and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for Taliban and other insurgent groups.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Full Story
On Saturday at 9:45 p.m., an American unmanned aerial vehicle, complete with streaming-video equipment, circled over an area in Afghanistan's Khost province and transmitted photographs of three people, including one who was digging in a roadway, apparently to plant an improvised explosive device.
Information from computer data at a ground-based Counter-IED Operations Integration Center allowed intelligence specialists to "positively identify" the three as insurgents, and thereafter "coalition forces used a precision munition to eliminate the militants," according to a U.S. military news release. The drone aircraft saw one of the insurgents running from the explosion toward nearby trees and a second precision munition was used to kill him, the release said. The military's fuzzy video of the attack can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/usfora.
Saturday's episode illustrates one result from what is becoming a major transfer from Iraq to Afghanistan of people, equipment and techniques of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). The makeshift bombs caused about 70 percent of the deaths and casualties among U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq, so the administration is putting additional assets to work to reduce that threat in Afghanistan.
The fiscal 2009 supplemental appropriations bill passed by Congress last week includes $1.1 billion to pay for the activities of JIEDDO, which has developed several devices to defeat improvised explosives. For example, electronic jamming devices such as Warlock are in play. Warlock uses low-power radio-frequency energy to block the signals of radio-controlled explosive detonators, such as cellphones, satellite phones and long-range cordless telephones. The supplement contains $355 million for additional Warlock devices. Other new instruments can look through the walls of metal, concrete or brick buildings and detect chemicals used for explosives.
A separate $4.5 billion in the supplemental bill is for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle Fund, of which $1.9 billion is to go for a lightweight version of the MRAP, the heavily armored troop-carrying vehicle developed to provide improved protection against IEDs. The Afghanistan version, dubbed the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV), is "urgently needed to protect service members against improvised explosive devices and other threats in Afghanistan," according to the congressional conference report on the bill.
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Expanded operations in Afghanistan also have led the U.S. Army to seek the assistance of contractors in one of its most secret operations -- the intelligence fusion centers in the United States and Afghanistan that work to identify the insurgent networks that produce IEDs. The Army is specifically seeking people with the highest security clearances who have specialized in irregular-warfare analysis and have an understanding of "insurgent-based unconventional warfare," according to a June 11 work statement.
Making IEDs has become a multimillion-dollar business. Some networks in Iraq and Afghanistan that have gotten into the business can trace their origins back centuries, and are based on tribal and commercial links that traditionally have supported enterprise in other areas, such as smuggling and drugs. In Iraq, according to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, "small, highly skilled IED cells often hire themselves out to other insurgent groups, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq or the Sunni group Ansaar al Sunna."
Some have advertised on the Internet, others have produced DVDs that show U.S. vehicles exploding to gain customers, while many have contracted for specific jobs and remained anonymous.
The CRS report described an IED cell as having someone to provide the finances, a bombmaker, someone to place the bomb in a roadway or building and another person to press the trigger. Often there will be an additional person to stand guard while the work is being done. For the more enterprising group, there is a person to photograph or videotape the results for later promotional use.
The Army contract is looking for 42 Special Forces-trained individuals, 12 of whom will serve in forward operating bases in Afghanistan where they will "engage in systematic identification and analysis of insurgent cells and networks germane or in some way associated with employing or facilitating IEDs," according to the work statement. They will deal with data on network structures; terrorist techniques; and individuals with chemistry, explosives or electronics training, as well as others who support insurgent groups with money, safe houses or bank accounts.
The 30 assigned within the United States will work on "assessing of past terrorist trends and adaptations . . . factoring current adversary intent, constraints, capabilities and likely targets at an operational level."
The end product, according to the work statement, should be development of "notional concepts of operations and courses of action that best represent likely adversary activity."
© 2009 The Washington Post Company
KABUL - Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a four-star American general with a long history in elite special operations, took charge of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Monday, a change the Pentagon hopes will turn the tide in an increasingly violent eight-year war.
Conservatives Oppose Military Escalation in Afghanistan
Support Bi-Partisan Congressional Appeal to Obama:
“Military escalation may well be counterproductive.”
The American Conservative Defense Alliance (ACDA), which focuses on national security and foreign policy issues, has endorsed a letter — from a coalition of conservative and liberal Congressman — asking President Obama “to reconsider the decision to send an additional 17,000 troops and to resist pressure to escalate even further.” The letter also states that, “the goals of our seven year military involvement remain troublingly unclear.”
ACDA President Michael Ostrolenk observed that, “Whenever an issue brings together House members ranging from Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) and Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) with Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC) and Ron Paul (R-TX), the White House should look closely at the arguments.” Ostrolenk continued, “To ratchet-up overall military operations in that volatile area, as opposed to a focused strategy of hunting down Osama Bin Laden and neutralizing al-Qaeda, is risky.”
The bipartisan letter from the House members to President Obama states, “If the intent is to leave behind a stable Afghanistan capable of governing itself, this military escalation may well be counterproductive.”
On February 16, 2009 Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., ACDA’s Francis Walsingham Fellow and a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, wrote an article in which he noted, “As occurred in Iraq with the insurgency and in Vietnam with the Viet Cong, a large proportion of the Afghan population, more than one quarter, now supports armed attacks against the US and its allies.” (http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=13)
Giraldi’s article, “Twilight in Afghanistan,” also stated: “Unfortunately, no end to reliance on war as the essential tool of American statecraft is in sight. Soldiers being removed from Iraq are going to Kabul. ... Wanting to draw down in Iraq and increase troop strength in Afghanistan, Obama is embracing one failed policy and transferring it somewhere else in hopes that it will succeed.”
The Congressional letter to President Obama, including the names of the eight Congressman who signed-on, is attached.
The American Conservative Defense Alliance is an educational and research organization advocating cost-effective but comprehensive defense policies, national security initiatives within Consitutional limits, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. ACDA believes, as President Ronald Reagan clearly stated, that “Peace is not absence of conflict: it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”
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LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - Close to 3,000 American Soldiers who recently arrived in Afghanistan to secure two violent provinces near Kabul have begun operations in the field and already are seeing combat, the unit's spokesman said Monday.
The new troops are the first wave of an expected surge of reinforcements this year. The process began to take shape under President George Bush but has been given impetus by President Barack Obama's call for an increased focus on Afghanistan.
U.S. commanders have been contemplating sending up to 30,000 more Soldiers to bolster the 33,000 already here, but the new administration is expected to initially approve only a portion of that amount. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday the president would decide soon.
The new unit - the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division - moved into Logar and Wardak provinces last month, and the Soldiers from Fort Drum, N.Y., are now stationed in combat outposts throughout the provinces.
Militants have attacked several patrols with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, including one ambush by 30 insurgents, Lt. Col. Steve Osterholzer, the brigade spokesman, said.
Several roadside bombs also have exploded next to the unit's MRAPs - mine-resistance patrol vehicles - but caused no casualties, he said.
"In every case our vehicles returned with overwhelming fire," Osterholzer said. "We have not suffered anything more than a few bruises, while several insurgents have been killed."
Commanders are in the planning stages of larger scale operations expected to be launched in the coming weeks.
Militant activity has spiked in Logar and Wardak over the last year as the resurgent Taliban has spread north toward Kabul from its traditional southern power base. Residents say insurgents roam wide swaths of Wardak, a mountainous province whose capital is about 35 miles from Kabul.
The region has been covered in snow recently, but Col. David B. Haight, commander of the 3rd Brigade, said last week that he expects contact with insurgents to increase soon.
"The weather has made it so the enemy activity is somewhat decreased right now, and I expect it to increase in the next two to three months," Haight said at a news conference.
Haight said he believes the increase of militant activity in the two provinces is not ideologically based but stems from poor Afghans being enticed into fighting by their need for money. Quoting the governor of Logar, the colonel called it an "economic war."
Afghan officials "don't believe it's hardcore al-Qaida operatives that you're never going to convert anyway," Haight said. "They believe that it's the guys who say, 'Hey you want $100 to shoot an RPG at a Humvee when it goes by,' and the guy says, 'Yeah I'll do that, because I've got to feed my family.'"
Still, Haight said there are hardcore fighters in the region, some of them allied with Jalaludin Haqqani and his son Siraj, a fighting family with a long history in Afghanistan. The two militant leaders are believed to be in Pakistan.
A new report from the RAND Corp. think tank argues against that approach. It contends a "game-changing" strategy is urgently needed in Afghanistan that would have the additional troops train Afghan security forces rather than directly confront militants.
"It is unlikely the United States and NATO (on their own) will defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan," said the paper, which was being released Tuesday.
Logar Gov. Atiqullah Ludin said at a news conference alongside Haight that U.S. troops will need to improve both security and the economic situation.
"There is a gap between the people and the government," Ludin said. "Assistance in Logar is very weak, and the life of the common man has not improved."
Ludin also urged that U.S. forces be careful and not act on bad intelligence to launch night raids on Afghans who turn out to be innocent.
It is a common complaint from Afghan leaders. President Hamid Karzai has long pleaded with U.S. forces not to kill innocent Afghans during military operations and says he hopes to see night raids curtailed.
Pointing to the value of such operations, the U.S. military said Monday that a raid in northwest Badghis province killed a feared militant leader named Ghulam Dastagir and eight other fighters.
Other raids, though, have killed innocent Afghans who were only defending their village against a nighttime incursion by forces they didn't know, officials say.
"We need to step back and look at those carefully, because the danger they carry is exponential," Ludin said.
Haight cautioned last week that civilian casualties could increase with the presence of his 2,700 Soldiers.
"We understand the probability of increased civilian casualties is there because of increased U.S. forces," said the colonel, who has also commanded Special Operations task forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Our plan is to do no operations without ANA (Afghan army) and ANP (Afghan police), to help us be more precise."
The U.S. military and Afghan Defense Ministry announced last week that Afghan officers and Soldiers would take on a greater role in military operations, including in specialized night raids, with the aim of decreasing civilian deaths.
The presence of U.S. troops in Wardak and Logar is the first time such a large contingent of American power has been so close to Kabul, fueling concerns that militants could be massing for a push at the capital. Haight dismissed those fears.
"Our provinces butt up against the southern boundary of Kabul and therefore there is the perception that Kabul could be surrounded," Haight said. "But the enemy cannot threaten Kabul. He's not big enough, he's not strong enough, he doesn't have the technology. He can conduct attacks but he can't completely disrupt the governance in Kabul."
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The catastrophic Iraq experience might have proven valuable if it had led to a rejection of the hegemonic policies embraced by a delusional Washington foreign policy establishment. Unfortunately, no end to reliance on war as the essential tool of American statecraft is in sight. Soldiers being removed from Iraq are going to Kabul. The Afghan war, which is now entering its eighth year, is curiously viewed by many in the elite as a "good" war opposed to the bad war in Iraq but, in spite of a NATO-led effort to pacify the country, the conflict has grown in intensity and morphed into a strange amalgam that is a bit like Iraq and a bit like Vietnam. Like Vietnam, where Washington legitimately feared communist expansion, Afghanistan was a war initiated in response to a vital national interest, to destroy a state sponsor of a terrorist group that had inflicted terrible damage on the US homeland. But both wars soon developed raisons d'etre that had nothing to do with America's security. As in Iraq, Afghanistan became an exercise in democracy promotion which failed to impose a western model of government on a society that operates in tribal terms. Like Vietnam, Kabul's unpopular and corrupt politicians have become the chief beneficiaries of US aid while the frustrated population embraces ever more extreme forms of resistance. As occurred in Iraq with the insurgency and in Vietnam with the Viet Cong, a large proportion of the Afghan population, more than one quarter, now supports armed attacks against the US and its allies.
In retrospect, the US should have eschewed the regime change option for Afghanistan and accepted the Taliban offer to turn over Osama bin Laden, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty and, at the time, intervening militarily seemed the right thing to do. Currently, the United States argues that it must stay in Afghanistan to save it from reverting to Taliban control and again becoming a terrorism supporting state, possibly inviting Osama bin Laden back from his refuge in nearby Waziristan. But the assumption that the Taliban, who are much more internally than externally focused, would welcome the complications resulting from bin Laden's embrace is quite likely erroneous as it would invite a devastating US response. To be sure, no one would want to return to the Taliban's brutal governance of Afghanistan, but many Afghans are now nostalgic at the relative security that prevailed under their rule. Ultimately, it is up to the Afghans to decide who will rule them and how and it is not up to Washington to make that call as long as terrorists are not using the country as a base to attack the United States.
The British and French have already decided that Afghanistan cannot be a victory in any conventional military sense and there are reports that both United States intelligence and the Pentagon have come to the same conclusion. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated that the United States cannot kill its way to victory in Afghanistan, indicating somewhat obliquely that he does not believe any surge in troop levels will provide a long-term solution. Washington is losing its war in Afghanistan and US forces will eventually leave the country. The only question is, will it be soon or will it be later. Meanwhile, the proxies appointed by Washington to rule are feeling the strain of trying to placate a hostile populace while at the same time keeping the occupiers happy. In late November, Afghan President Hamid Karzai angrily denounced the development of a parallel carpetbagger government to be run by the United States and NATO. He demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign soldiers, noting that his countrymen no longer understand what the fighting is all about, particularly as they hear of wedding parties and school outings being blasted by the helicopters and warplanes of their ostensible allies. Karzai asked rhetorically how the insurgency can keep getting stronger when most of the world is united in an attempt to defeat it, and he reiterated his intention to negotiate with the Taliban leaders to bring peace. For Afghanistan the United States will almost certainly be eventually viewed as just one more in a long series of invaders, all of whom were eventually defeated and left the country.
That the Afghans are demanding a timetable for Washington to leave is remarkable, and it speaks to the declining role and possible irrelevance of the United States to what is happening. Apart from shoring up the unpopular and corrupt Karzai regime out of fear that it would be replaced by something worse, Washington is no longer the essential nation in a region that it had set out to dominate by force of arms over seven years ago. In a regional context, the blundering occupation and a failed reconstruction in Afghanistan have empowered only Iran.
So what does the turn of events in Afghanistan mean vis-à-vis President Barack Obama's foreign policy? Wanting to draw down in Iraq and increase troop strength in Afghanistan, Obama is embracing one failed policy and transferring it somewhere else in hopes that it will succeed. Obama is only a "peace" candidate in relative terms, having committed himself to negotiating before he bombs. He has agreed to double troop levels in Afghanistan and is non-committal on even larger increases. He has even adopted the absurd Bush Administration jargon, referring to Afghanistan as the "central front in the war on terror." He has continued drone attacks into Pakistan and has even out-Republicaned the Republicans in his pledge to use US troops to aggressively pursue terrorists inside nuclear-armed Pakistan, an act of war that would further destabilize that unhappy land.
One has to hope that Obama, an intelligent man who appears to have a conscience, will quickly discover that Washington no longer has the resources to intervene by force when and where it chooses. The United States might find itself compelled to bring home the regiments and aircraft carriers as the burden of empire becomes insupportable. Afghanistan wants the United States to leave, but on its own timetable enabling the Karzai regime to survive. Perhaps it would be appropriate to move that timetable up in America's own national interest and leave now.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The milk is now pulled from the mess hall by 9 a.m., to ration the limited supply.
At the Camp Phoenix base store nearby, the shelves look bare. There's no Irish Spring Body Wash, no Doritos, no Tostitos Scoops, no Bayer Aspirin.
"We're having the same problems all over Afghanistan," said Randy Barnes, who manages warehouses for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, which operates stores at many of the bases where U.S. troops are deployed in the war on terror here.
For the Soldiers at Camp Phoenix, about 650 of whom are from the Illinois National Guard, the missing supplies underscore what senior military officials have been saying for months: U.S. and coalition troops must find new routes to supply what will be a rapidly growing force in Afghanistan, ones that avoid the treacherous border areas of Pakistan where convoys have been ambushed.
Supplying an army in any war is crucial; it's not just bullets and bombs, but everything from fuel to lettuce, that must be shipped in by the ton and the truckload. And a country like Afghanistan -- landlocked, mountainous and with few good roads -- poses enormously difficult challenges even without attacks by militants.
Gen. David Petraeus, the chief of U.S. Central Command, announced late last month that the military had reached transit deals with Russia and several Central Asian states to the north of Afghanistan, to provide an alternate route from Pakistan. But it's not yet clear whether any new route would be able to absorb the heavy traffic.
"It is very important as we increase the effort in Afghanistan that we have multiple routes that go into the country," Petraeus said.
President Barack Obama has made the fight against militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- rather than in Iraq -- his top priority in the war on terror. His administration is expected to send as many as 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the coming months.
The supply-route challenge is politically sensitive; as long as the U.S. and coalition troops depend on Pakistan to move supplies, it's difficult to be too critical of its government's help in the war on terror. Some in Washington have questioned Pakistan's commitment.
But a route through Russia and neighboring countries is not necessarily a long-term solution either. The over-land route is much longer and more expensive, and dealing with repressive regimes in Central Asia also could pose political dilemmas.
Sensitive military goods, such as weapons and ammunition, are transported by military convoy or air, and have not been hurt by supply-route problems, officials say. Air transport for non-combat goods is prohibitively expensive and also logistically difficult.
Right now, subcontractors transport about 75 percent of non-sensitive military goods for U.S. troops and a smaller but significant amount for NATO troops from the port in Karachi, Pakistan, through the Torkham border crossing into Afghanistan. About 125 shipping containers pass through that crossing daily.
It's the shortest route to Kabul and Bagram Air Base, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, yet it goes through narrow roads, mountain passes and hostile areas.
Despite the risk, security is often lax. In recent months, Taliban-led militants have frequently attacked the military shipping containers, often stored by these subcontractors just outside Peshawar, Pakistan, in five ramshackle yards with little security and no barbed wire. Militants have destroyed more than 300 shipping containers so far, torching at least 80 Humvees for the Afghan National Army.
Pakistani officials blamed the subcontractors for sacrificing security for profit.
"There are two or three guards, no lights, no cameras. An office consists of an empty container, two broken-down chairs, no phone and no fax line," said Tariq Hayat Khan, the political agent for Khyber tribal agency, which includes the main road from Peshawar to Torkham. "By no stretch of the imagination can you call them shipping terminals. They've just started leveling fields and stacking containers. All they do is charge money and deliver from Point A to Point B."
Because of the escalating number of attacks, Pakistan has suspended traffic through this crossing three times in the past seven weeks to launch offensives against militants. At the other major crossing in Pakistan, through Chaman in Baluchistan province, tribesmen blockaded the road for five days recently because a tribesman was killed, stranding hundreds of trucks and fuel tankers.
Barnes said some of the destroyed containers set on fire near Peshawar were bound for stores at U.S. military bases. He said his company was still determining what was lost.
In a roadside bomb attack on the route a couple weeks ago, four shipping containers filled with "near beer," soda and water for the troops were hit, dooming the entire shipment bound for Camp Phoenix and Camp Eggers, said Lt. Col. Eric Little, 37, of Springfield, the garrison commander for Camp Phoenix.
Only at the end of January -- a month late -- did the last of 21 shipping containers with the personal goods of Illinois National Guard Soldiers arrive at Camp Phoenix.
"The majority of stuff makes it from Point A to Point B -- but not necessarily timely," said Little, adding that finding other supply routes was a necessity.
Taliban-led militants are not the only ones to blame. Some drivers are known to steal fuel and supplies from the trucks, or fake militant attacks and sell the goods, commonly available at markets in Kabul and near Bagram. Islamic holidays and tribal conflicts have also been used as an excuse for the massive delays.
Although the supply-route problems are not yet hurting the military effort here, they affect daily life at the bases, at least at Camp Phoenix, usually one of the most well-stocked because it is in the capital.
"I've never seen the store this empty, ever," said Ula Loi, the store manager.
The troops can still get medicine from the medical tents, where the stocked supplies are plentiful, so the only immediate shortages are quality-of-life ones, which probably won't win much sympathy from Soldiers in more remote bases. Still, most snacks, half the beauty products, and all the adapter plugs and combination locks are sold out.
Last week, several Illinois National Guard Soldiers complained about the empty shelves -- one traded a pack of spare razor blades for a bag of chips, neither of which were available.
"They don't even have any Vaseline," said 2nd Lt. Michael Quam, 27, from Dubuque, Iowa, who wanted Vaseline for an Afghan friend whose wife just had a baby.
© Copyright 2009 Chicago Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
French Muslim soldiers have refused to serve in Afghanistan, saying their faith forbids them from fighting fellow Muslims, a military spokesman confirmed to AFP.
"The refusal to be assigned to a mission for religious reasons is a micro-phenomenon concerning fewer than five cases per year," said Colonel Benoit Royal, confirming a report on the website of left-wing daily Liberation.
Liberation's respected "Defence Secret" blog reported Wednesday that an infantry soldier in eastern France had in October refused to be stationed in Afghanistan but later agreed, after meeting with a Muslim chaplain.
Soldiers who refuse a mission face disciplinary action and in most cases are discharged from the army, Royal said.
The army spokesman said the refusal by some soldiers showed a "lack of understanding of their commitment which is to bear arms for France to defend its interests and values at all times and everywhere."
France has 2,600 troops serving in NATO's Afghan mission to shore up the weak government of President Hamid Karzai and battle the Taliban, who were driven out of Kabul in late 2001.
France's force is one of the largest there, after the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany. In all, 25 French soldiers have died on the mission, with casualties increasing since they were reinforced last year.
© Copyright 2009 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The head of counterterrorism operations for the U.S. Department of State said the al-Qaeda network is largely broken and has lost the ability to conduct large-scale terrorist operations.
While the U.S. has still been unable to kill or capture the organization's top leaders, they have nevertheless been "beaten back into a hole" by relentless pressure from special operations, law enforcement and drone attacks.
"They are scratching their heads, realizing they took on a pretty savvy opponent who went after them kinetically very fast, pulled out the rug from underneath them, put them on the run, put them in a area where they didn't have the assets they had before," said former Army special operations commander, Amb. Dell Dailey, who now heads the State Department's counterterrorism office. "Bin Laden can't get an operational effort off the ground without it being detected ahead of time and being thwarted."
Dailey cited the foiled terror plot to bring down as many as 10 U.S.-bound commercial jets in 2006 as an example of al-Qaeda's diminished capability to launch dramatic attacks.
"Their ability to reach is non-existent," Dailey told military reporters during a Jan. 6 breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C.
But that doesn't mean the U.S. can sit back and relax, he added.
Though he's a political appointee who may not keep his job in an Obama administration, Dailey had high praise for the incoming team's counterterrorism strategy and for the people who've been tabbed to wage it.
Over the five meetings he's had with Obama officials since the election, Dailey sees a willingness to abandon presidential campaign promises to unilaterally move into Pakistan if there's solid intel on bin Laden's whereabouts and the local government cannot or will not act. The incoming administration's focus on strengthening multilateralism over unilateralism seems to mesh with the State Department's current counter-terror plan.
"It's not 'go out and kill people right now' to the detriment of our relationships with sovereign countries," Dailey said. "Their twist is going to be more aggressive engagement with our partner nations."
Transition officials have told Dailey's office they're in favor of efforts to assist other countries fight terror, including support for the Shared Security Partnership Plan -- a $5 billion, three-year program to bolster law enforcement and intelligence activities with allied nations to help them undermine terror networks.
Dailey also had high praise for the Obama team's pick for the Director of National Intelligence and new CIA chief.
Adm. Dennis Blair, who was nominated for DNI, is a "smart, smart guy" and a "very aggressive" warrior who will be sensitive to the interagency bureaucratic tangles that come with the job of heading the intelligence community.
While he hasn't worked personally with CIA chief nominee Leon Panetta, Dailey called him a "team builder" and prudent choice when it comes to "people skills and managerial skills."
But with al-Qaeda on the ropes and an aggressive and experienced team coming in to confront global terror threats, Dailey warned against resting on laurels.
"We've chopped off [al Qaeda's] arms, we've chopped off their communications and we've chopped off their funding. We've gone after their leadership and taken away their training sites," Dailey said. "That would be my message to [the Obama team] ... keep all that going and not to fall back into a false sense of security."
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WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush wrapped up a whirlwind trip to two war zones today that in many ways was a victory lap without a clear victory. A signature event occurred when an Iraqi reporter hurled two shoes at Bush, declaring: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."
The president visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to his successor, Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.
"The war is not over," Bush said, but "it is decisively on its way to being won."
Bush then traveled to Afghanistan where he spoke to U.S. Soldiers and Marines at a hangar on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base. The rally for over a thousand military personnel took place in the dark, cold pre-dawn hours. Bush was greeted by loud cheers from the troops.
"Afghanistan is a dramatically different country than it was eight years ago," he said. "We are making hopeful gains."
But the president's message on progress in the region was having trouble competing with the videotaped image of the angry Iraqi who hurled his shoes at Bush in a near-miss, shouting in Arabic, "This is your farewell kiss, you dog!" The reporter was later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.
In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.
Reaction in Iraq was swift but mixed, with some condemning the act and others applauding it. Television news stations throughout Iraq repeatedly showed footage of the incident, and newspapers carried headline stories.
In Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for protests against President Bush and demanded the release of the reporter, who was jailed after throwing his shoes.
The Iraqi government condemned the act and demanded an on-air apology from Al-Baghdadia television, the Iraqi-owned station that employs Muntadar al-Zeidi. The reporter was taken into custody and reportedly was being held for questioning by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's guards and is being tested for alcohol and drugs.
"It harmed the reputation of Iraqi journalists and Iraqi journalism in general," according to a statement released by the government.
After word spread of the shoe attack, Afghan reporters had gathered at the presidential palace in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, before a news conference by Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Some of the reporters - a collegial bunch that sees one another several times a week - egged on one of their colleagues, jokingly trying to pressure the television reporter into taking off his shoe and hurling it once the U.S. president arrived. He did not.
Karzai's deputy spokesman, Saimak Herwai, told Afghan reporters that they had to address Bush as "His Excellency," an honorary title not typically used with U.S. presidents. The request was followed by some, not by others.
Bush then took a helicopter ride to Kabul to meet with Karzai.
After their meeting, Bush said he told Karzai: "You can count on the United States. Just like you've been able to count on this administration, you'll be able to count on the next administration as well."
The mixed reactions to Bush in both countries emphasized the uncertain situations Bush is leaving behind in the region.
In Iraq, nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, protecting the fragile democracy. More than 4,209 members of the U.S. military have died and $576 billion has been spent since the war began five years and nine months ago. The Bush administration and even White House critics credit last year's military buildup with the security gains in Iraq. Last month, attacks fell to the lowest monthly level since the war began in 2003.
In Afghanistan, there are about 31,000 U.S. troops and commanders have called for up to 20,000 more. The fight is especially difficult in southern Afghanistan, a stronghold of the Taliban where violence has risen sharply this year.
It was Bush's last trip to the war zones before Obama takes office Jan. 20. Obama, a Democrat, has promised he will bring all U.S. combat troops back home from Iraq a little over a year into his term, as long as commanders agree a withdrawal would not endanger American personnel or Iraq's security. Obama has said the drawdown in Iraq would allow him to shift troops and bolster the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
It's unclear what will happen in Iraq when the U.S. troops leave. While violence has slowed in Iraq, attacks continue, especially in the north.
Bush was traveling back to Washington in the early hours Monday.
After the shoe-throwing incident, White House press secretary Dana Perino suffered an eye injury when she was hit in the face with a microphone during the melee.
Bush, who has grown used to protests of his Iraq policy, brushed off the incident. He said, "So what if a guy threw his shoe at me."
© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Either way, we'll be leaving. Thanksgiving week was remarkable because it may have witnessed the last nails being driven into the coffin of America's ongoing colonial enterprise. On Tuesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai angrily denounced the creation of a parallel carpetbagger government to be run by the United States and NATO in his country. He demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign soldiers, noting that his countrymen no longer understand what the fighting is all about, particularly as they hear of wedding parties and school outings being blasted by the helicopters and warplanes of their ostensible allies. Karzai asked rhetorically how the insurgency can keep getting stronger when most of the world is united in an attempt to defeat it, and he reiterated his intention to negotiate with the Taliban leaders to bring peace.
On Thanksgiving Day itself, by a narrow margin, the Iraqi parliament voted for a new status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the United States that will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2009. The neoconservatives have predictably declared that the SOFA represents victory, even though they have not read the document itself, which no one outside of the administration has seen in its English version. Leaks of the Arabic version and the horse-trading that preceded the ratification suggest that the final agreement was something less than a triumph for the Bush White House. Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated against a continued American presence, and there was virtually no interest in permitting either the open-ended U.S. military commitment or the immunity for American forces Washington demanded. U.S. forces reportedly can no longer detain Iraqi citizens, and both soldiers and contractors will be subject to Iraqi courts for serious crimes. American troops will be gone from Iraq's cities by June 2009 and completely gone from the country by the end of 2011. The four major military bases envisioned to maintain a long-term American presence will never materialize, and the huge embassy on the banks of the Tigris will serve more as a mausoleum to American ambitions than as a seat of power for a U.S. viceroy.
Intelligence sources are also gloomy in their predictions, with some assessments indicating that deeply rooted antipathy toward the U.S. presence could drive American forces out of Iraq sooner rather than later, the SOFA notwithstanding. Iraq will eventually find its own way forward, though probably with much blood and suffering, but if there is one thing for sure it is that the United States will in all likelihood be neither a friend nor an ally to whatever type of government emerges. Dislike of Washington runs deep in all the political groups that make up the country, with the exception of the Kurds, who are seeking to leverage American support into their own independence, an objective strongly resisted by both Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs. Likewise in Afghanistan the United States will almost certainly be eventually viewed as just one more in a long series of invaders, all of whom were eventually defeated and left the country.
That the Afghans are demanding a timetable for Washington to leave and that the Iraqis have already set a deadline is remarkable, and it speaks to the declining role and possible irrelevance of the United States to what is going on in the Near East. If the United States has retained a shred of decency, then it will hopefully be willing to go when it is asked to do so. Apart from shoring up the unpopular regimes in place in both Afghanistan and Iraq to permit some sort of political settlement, Washington is no longer the essential nation in a region that it had set out to dominate by force of arms seven years ago. In a regional context, the removal of Saddam Hussein coupled with a blundering occupation and a failed reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan has reinvigorated the terrorist threat and has empowered only Iran.
So what does the turn of events in Iraq and Afghanistan mean vis-à-vis Barack Obama's foreign policy? Obama is only a "peace" candidate in relative terms, having committed himself to negotiating before he bombs. He has said that he will stay in Iraq as long as the generals recommend it, and he has not explicitly disowned the current U.S. policies of preemptive warfare and nation-building. He appears willing to consider regime change if it is applied selectively. Ever resolute in his AIPAC-fueled pledge to stop the Iranian nuclear program, he has also supported intervention in new regions like Darfur where the United States has no conceivable national interest. He has even out-Republicaned the Republicans in his pledge to use U.S. troops to aggressively pursue terrorists inside nuclear-armed Pakistan, an act of war that would further destabilize that unhappy land.
Wanting to draw down in Iraq and increase troop strength in Afghanistan, Obama is embracing taking one failed policy and transferring it somewhere else in hopes that it will succeed. He is also ignoring sage advice. The British and French have already indicated that the Afghan conflict cannot be won in any conventional sense, making the NATO commitment to the war questionable, to say the least. Even Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated that the United States cannot kill its way to victory in Afghanistan, indicating somewhat obliquely that he does not believe any surge in troop levels will provide a long-term solution.
The fact is that Barack Obama's foreign policy is just Bush-lite: it embraces the principle that the judicious use of force is a good thing and that Washington should properly be the world's policeman. Many Democratic stalwarts, including party leaders Steny Hoyer, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi, are at heart interventionists. Obama's foreign policy team is troubling, most particularly in the choice of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and of Hillary "Obliterate Iran" Clinton as his secretary of state. There has been some speculation that Obama is preempting criticism by AIPAC in naming two of the most pro-Israeli hawks in Congress to key positions, providing him with the political cover that he needs to pursue a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. The analogy of Nixon going to China is sometimes cited, suggesting that only someone with a sustained record of criticism of an adversary would have the political credibility to take the bold steps necessary to shift the political playing field. But that analysis ignores a critical element, which is that changing China policy did not lead to confrontation with a major domestic constituency seeking to block any agreement. AIPAC would oppose giving anything to the Palestinians at the expense of Israel, and it has demonstrated that it has a de facto veto over Washington's Middle East policy. Can anyone truly believe that Hillary Clinton will take a hard line with Israel, demanding that Tel Aviv stop and even roll back its settlement activity? Without such a bold step, no viable peace agreement is possible.
The other Obama foreign policy hypothesis, that Hillary Clinton will serve as a dutiful and obedient secretary of state carrying out the president's policies reliably and without demur, is also little more than speculation. On the contrary, Clinton's history and her thinly veiled ambitions would suggest the opposite, and her husband, a perpetual loose cannon on deck, also cannot be relied upon to be a team player. It is much more likely that Obama, recognizing that he is vulnerable on foreign policy and knowing that he will be watched closely, has decided to pursue a foreign policy that both AIPAC and Hillary will be comfortable with, which means that the Palestinians can kiss the next four years good-bye and Iran better look to its defenses.
Or maybe Obama, an intelligent man who appears to have a conscience, will quickly discover that Washington no longer has the resources to intervene by force when and where it chooses. The United States might find itself compelled to bring home the regiments and aircraft carriers as the burden of empire becomes insupportable, as in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Recessional" predicting the end of the British Empire: "Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre." Iraq and Afghanistan both want the United States to leave, but on their timetable. Perhaps it would be appropriate to move that timetable up in America's own national interest and leave now before Washington truly becomes Nineveh on the Potomac.
From http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=13840
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today he has asked the king of Saudi Arabia to help facilitate peace talks with the Taliban in order to bring an end to the Afghan conflict.
Karzai said there has not yet been any negotiations, only requests for help. But he said that Afghan officials have traveled to both Saudi Arabia and to Pakistan in hopes of ending the conflict.
"For the last two years, I've sent letters to the king of Saudi Arabia, and I've sent messages, and I requested from him as the leader of the Islamic world, for the security and prosperity of Afghanistan and for reconciliation in Afghanistan ... he should help us," Karzai said.
Speaking on the grounds of the presidential palace, where he gave his traditional message to Afghans for the Muslim religious holiday of Eid-al Fitr, Karzai said his government is trying to encourage militants to lay down arms.
He underscored that he has in the past reached out to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar to "come back to your home soil and work for the happiness of the people."
Omar, meanwhile, released his own Eid message and launched a barrage of accusations against Afghanistan's security forces, calling them thieves, smugglers and criminals not worthy of people's trust.
Omar's message did not include any indication of willingness to talk to Karzai's government. Instead, it called again on foreign troops to leave the country.
According to Agence France Presse, Omar offered international forces a safe retreat from Afghanistan if they agree to withdraw.
"I say to the invaders: if you leave our country, we will provide you the safe context to do so," Omar said, adding that if western troops did not leave they would be defeated, as was the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
A former senior Taliban official told The Associated Press last week that the militants do not consider Karzai a strong leader who can uphold and implement any potential deal if America does not agree with it. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified.
U.S. officials have not indicated they are ready for any contacts with high-level Taliban leaders, though U.S. officials do encourage fighters to lay down arms and join the Afghan government's reconciliation program.
An Afghan opposition leader, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, told The Associated Press earlier this year that Afghan political leaders have been meeting with Taliban and other anti-government groups in hopes of negotiating peace.
The contacts took place between leaders of the opposition National Front party and "high level" militant leaders.
Rabbani says Afghanistan's six-year war must be solved through talks, echoing a view held by many in the country. He said some Taliban are willing to negotiate, but that others are not.
Karzai, in his message Tuesday, said he would personally protect Taliban and other militant leaders from U.S. and NATO troops if they come back to Afghanistan for talks.
"Don't be afraid of the foreigners. If they try to harm you, I will stand in front of them," Karzai said.
Karzai said "everybody knows" Afghan officials are working toward peace efforts, and that if there is any progress, Afghan officials would announce it. "There hasn't been anything practical, but are hopeful it will happen," he said.
The build-up of the Afghan security forces is the centerpiece of the American counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan and Omar's Eid message appeared to react to that.
Afghan, U.S. and other international officials recently decided to increase the size of the Afghan army to 134,000, raising the previous cap of 80,000.
"There are thousands of security forces ... and it is clear that they are criminal, thieves, and the people can not trust the security forces at all," Omar said in a statement posted on a Web site that has carried many Taliban statements in the past.
"Foreign forces are the thieves of our culture, faith, as well as natural resources, in the same way the army and police steal the money, dignity and the honor of the people."
Omar also called on militants not to harm civilians during their operations.
Omar went into hiding after a U.S.-led invasion toppled his Taliban regime in Afghanistan seven years ago. Afghan officials have said he is hiding in or near the Pakistani city of Quetta. Pakistan says he is in Afghanistan.
Also today, the U.S.-led coalition said three of its troops were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan.
The coalition did not release any other details, including the nationalities of the troops or the blast's location. Most troops in the coalition are American but it does include forces from several other countries.
Taliban and other militant bombs have grown larger and more deadly this year. More U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan already this year than in any year since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. At least 127 U.S. forces have died, as have 99 from other coalition countries.
© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Earlier this month Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that time is running out in Afghanistan. Though emphasizing the need for reconstruction and noting that "we cannot kill our way to victory," he also announced that a new strategy would have to be pursued that would essentially consist of sending more soldiers, drawing them down from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have endorsed sending two more combat brigades to Afghanistan, less than the three that the Pentagon is seeking. The strategy for victory assumes, of course, that more soldiers alone will remedy what ails Afghanistan, turning the country around and making it into a stable, pluralistic democracy. No one questions that security is a fundamental issue if Afghanistan is to be stabilized, but the assumption that 10,000 more soldiers will make the crucial difference can and should be questioned by the American public, which is providing the soldiers and paying the costs of the war.
Reading history books may not be required at the Naval Academy, but Adm. Mullen should consider some historical analogies. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires ever since Alexander the Great had trouble crossing the Khyber Pass in 326 B.C. He wisely decided to pretty much leave the tribesmen alone and moved south to India. From the Middle Ages on, waves of invading Mongols, Moghul rulers of India, and Persians have swept through the area, but the Afghan tribes have always proved fractious and hard to rule.
Foreign domination ended in 1747 when the Persians were expelled from the western part of the country and a local dynasty was established that survived into the 20th century. For the following two centuries Britain and Russia vied to control the area because of its vital trade routes across Asia but found it largely indigestible. An entire British army was annihilated in the First Afghan War of 1839-1842. Britain did not trouble the Afghans again until 1878, when a modern army advancing on Kabul was ambushed and nearly overwhelmed at Ahmed Khel before British firepower gave the advantage to the invaders. The British chose to leave the Afghans alone, paying a large subsidy in gold to the country's rulers while only stipulating that a British minister would have veto authority over Afghan foreign policy, a move designed to keep the Russians out. In 1919, the Afghans rose up, invading India before being driven back and defeated inside Afghanistan by an expeditionary force armed with field artillery and machine guns. The British wisely withdrew and, by the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919, the British Empire accepted complete Afghan independence.
The next great power that tried to occupy Afghanistan was the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1992. Moscow eventually sent 110,000 soldiers supported by tanks and helicopters to Afghanistan before withdrawing in failure with at least 10,000 dead. A Soviet-backed puppet regime survived for a short time before being replaced by the Taliban. Now there is a U.S.-backed puppet regime in Kabul headed by Hamid Karzai, sometimes referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul" because of the limits of his authority, who reportedly became president in the first place because he spoke good English. His government is largely ineffective and is extremely corrupt, with much of the corruption coming from drug money, which makes up the bulk of the country's economy. There have been numerous attempts to kill Karzai, who is protected from assassination by a praetorian guard from Blackwater International.
In short, invaders who seek to control Afghanistan either directly or by proxy become involved in long, bloody wars, and they eventually decide the best choice is to depart and leave the Afghans to their own devices. That might be good advice in the current situation also. Afghanistan is as big as the state of Texas. It has nonexistent-to-poor roads, and its terrain is forbidding, with mountains in many parts and deserts in others. Its richest agricultural regions in the south are also the areas where the Taliban are dominant and where poppies are grown that provide more than 90 percent of the world's heroin.
Washington is alarmed because violence in Afghanistan has been increasing dramatically over the past two years in all areas and by every metric. The Taliban now control or move freely in nearly a third of the country, mostly in the Pashtun-dominated south and along the border with Pakistan. In those areas, travel conditions are regarded as extremely hazardous and civilians from the UN or from NGOs cannot normally enter without large military escorts, which are themselves frequently attacked. In another third of the country there is a high and increasing level of violence, though some NGOs continue to operate in the better-protected areas. In the rest of the country, mostly in the Tajik- and Uzbek-dominated north, the situation is relatively secure. Kabul is on a fault line between relatively safe and unsafe areas and has recently seen a number of bombings and assassinations. Foreigners normally do not move around the city without an armed escort.
Because of the country's size and geography, it has been estimated that something like 400,000 soldiers would be required to effectively secure Afghanistan. Lacking anything near those resources and given the profile of where the violence is concentrated, one would expect that there would be an intensified military effort to deal with the violence in the south and along the border, but that is only somewhat true. There are 54,000 NATO and U.S. soldiers in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Most are in and around Kabul or engaged in reconstruction and training in relatively safe areas. Of all the NATO troops, only the Canadians, British, and Dutch are allowed to operate in the dangerous south and actually fight. And even for those nations, the NATO mandate on Afghanistan expires in 2010, and there is every indication the parliaments in Europe, where the cause of Afghanistan is very unpopular, will refuse to extend the commitment, leaving only the U.S.
Washington currently has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, half with NATO and half under independent command, and it might well add an additional three brigades or 10,000 soldiers by next year. That might seem like a large number of soldiers, but there are four times that many in Iraq, a much smaller country and one that does not have a second war to contend with. Neighboring Pakistan is both a safe haven for the Taliban and al-Qaeda and also itself a major front in the war in Afghanistan, because fighting along the border spills over into both countries. Also, the numbers of U.S. soldiers are deceptive as the Pentagon deploys far more support and staff soldiers than it does combat units. For example, the United States has 146,000 soldiers in Iraq but only 15 combat brigades. Brigades are roughly 3,000 soldiers, meaning that slightly less than one third of the Iraq deployment consists of soldiers who are actually trained in fighting. Of that one third, soldiers work in shifts and have administrative and training duties, and even combat units have their own staffs. That generally means that less than a quarter of the number of combat soldiers are actually operational at any given time. If you assume that the numbers for Afghanistan are roughly proportionate to those in Iraq, a surge of 10,000 more soldiers up to a 41,000 soldier total translates into 14,000 combat troops, only 3,500 of whom are patrolling or operating at any given time. To continue with the Texas analogy based on the size of Afghanistan, consider what 3,500 soldiers would be able to do if they were deployed to fight an insurgency and also maintain order in a geographic area as big as Texas, where the city of Houston alone has more than 4,000 policemen, if the population were hostile and heavily armed. A few thousand soldiers would be overwhelmed, which is precisely why in Afghanistan U.S. forces have had to rely on air power to maintain themselves, killing many civilians in the process. One might also return to the historical analogy, noting that the Russians had 110,000 soldiers, backed a regime that had considerable resources, and still lost.
Finally, there is the political argument for considering giving up Afghanistan as an unwinnable cause. The U.S. has occupied Afghanistan for seven years. Pacification of the country, which might have taken place if the Iraq war had not intervened, did not occur, and the security situation is now worse than it has been at any time since December 2001. Reconstruction has been mismanaged and plagued by corruption. Many potential donor countries have reasonably enough refused to give aid because the security situation is so bad. The U.S. persists in supporting President Karzai even though his government is corrupt and ineffective. Staying in Afghanistan to stop international terrorism is a fiction, as the presence of U.S. forces has, if anything, served as a magnet and recruiting tool for the insurgents. If it is being argued that an enhanced U.S. presence in Afghanistan will suddenly turn things around and make the world a better and safer place, it is the right of the American public, which is sending its sons and daughters into the meat grinder, to demand an explanation of why that is so. I do not believe that such a case has been or can be made. It is time to consider leaving Afghanistan.
By Philip Giraldi
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=13490
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September 15, 2008
Virginian-Pilot
Two highly decorated Navy SEALs died from injuries suffered in fierce fighting against insurgents in Afghanistan, according to the Navy.
Senior Chief Petty Officer John Marcum, 34, and Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Freiwald, 30, died from injuries sustained in a battle with heavily armed militants, the Navy said. The men were deployed from the highly selective Naval Special Warfare Development Group at Dam Neck Annex in Virginia Beach.
Capt. Scott Moore, commanding officer of the development group, said the deaths were "tremendous losses."
"These men were true warriors, dedicated to their country, their fellow SEALs and the cause for which they were fighting," Moore said in a statement. "They died taking the fight to the enemy, going in harm's way with the selflessness that resonated in their character and made them giants among men."
Marcum, a native of Flushing, Mich., joined the service in August 1991. After basic training, he attended the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center at Dam Neck.
He then went to basic SEAL training and took his first permanent post with SEAL Team 2 at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. Marcum began training for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group in March 2000.
He deployed numerous times. His awards include four Bronze Star medals for combat valor. Marcum is survived by his wife, Cynthia; his daughter, Madison; and his mother and father, according to the Navy.
Among his many citations, Freiwald, a native of Utica, Mich., was a Bronze Star recipient. On Tuesday, he was scheduled for promotion to chief petty officer. Freiwald enlisted in the Navy in April 1996. He was awarded a Bronze Star for combat valor, a Joint Service Commendation Medal, also for combat valor, and numerous other personal and unit medals, according to the Navy. He is survived by his wife, Stacey, and his daughter, Jasmine.
© Copyright 2008 Virginian-Pilot. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
For the Marine Corps this year Afghanistan has proven a deadly and treacherous place.
The killing of 11 Pakistani soldiers by US air strikes last week showed that the American-led war in Afghanistan is relentlessly spreading into Pakistan, one of America’s oldest, most faithful allies.
Afghanistan's thriving heroin drug trade is a significant barrier to the country fully moving into modernity after centuries of chronic instability, poverty, and barbaric rule. The U.S.-led counter-narcotics program, which emphasizes poppy crop destruction, hasn't been able to thwart it. Absent a suitable anti-drug alternative the nation risks becoming a failed state again, crippling the war against radical Islamic extremism.
OUTSIDE GARMSER, Afghanistan - U.S. Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan's most violent province early April 28, the first major American operation in the region in years.
