Jul 03 2009
As U.S. Troops Mount Offensive in Afghanistan
U.S. Marines marked the start of a new offensive in Afghanistan Thursday, as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to stabilize the Afghan-Pakistan border region. A Washington Post reporter embedded in the Helmand province provides an update
Jul 24 2008
I wasn’t planning on posting anything today, have too much to do and other thoughts on my mind.
But yesterday I watched, as many have seen by now, someone who should have a much better understanding, above that of its citizens, what this country’s policies are and their implementation.
McClatchy has a couple of reports that hit on a couple of the Points of the ‘surge’:
May 15 2008
It’s been said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the “anti-Rumsfeld.” Soft-spoken, open to input from others, Gates’ reputation as a sane voice and a counter to the bellicosity of earlier Bush years is entrenched in any number of newspaper and TV pundit accounts.
But in fact Gates has recently made himself the point-man of what Tom Englhardt has called “the war in the slum cities of the planet.” Consistently and forcefully, Gates in recent months has argued and cheer-leaded for a global counterinsurgency war; a war extended into the foreseeable future in which America — having no geo-strategic equal — devotes itself to crushing sparks of militant protest wherever they arise. Gates’ performance has been remarkable in its lack of ideological cover-stories and for its single-minded devotion to neo-imperial power.
Apr 08 2008
Above title comes from MoJo, short for Mother Jones, for those not in the know.
It covers this:
Washington Dispatch: We asked a dozen national security experts what Congress should ask the top military commander in Iraq at this week’s hearings. Here’s what they came up with.
Nov 21 2007
Reuters has just posted a story that should make Americans stand up and take notice — assuming they can bestir their self-interested torpor — as the Senlis Council, a well-respected international think-tank, has released a report, “Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the Brink”, which argues the situation in Afghanistan has reached “crisis proportions”. This follows the revelations last month from a top British politician and former UN representative in the Balkans that the war in Afghanistan is “lost”.
Canadian Television summed up the conclusions in the Senlis report this way (all emphases in quotes throughout are mine):
*** The Taliban are winning hearts and minds in southern Afghanistan; the international community is not. NATO-ISAF troops are forced to fight in an increasingly hostile environment because of the international community’s blunt political errors.
*** The absence of comprehensive development aid plans has given a strategic advantage to the Taliban.
*** Time for a well-planned village by village hearts and minds campaign to re-engage the Afghan population and make NATO’s mission a successful one.