More US troops for Afghanistan: Are they inevitable? - Christian Science Monitor
News Channel 7More US troops for Afghanistan: Are they inevitable?Christian Science MonitorWashington — The 21000 US troops promised to Afghanistan have still not all arrived, …Emerging GOP Line: Don’t ‘Rumsfeld’ AfghanistanThe Washington…
"It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam"
Compare and contrast:
Obama’s Vietnam: “Vietnam analogies can be tiresome. To critics, especially those on the left, all American interventions after Vietnam have been potential “quagmires.” But sometimes clichés come true, and, especially lately, it seems that the war in Afghanistan is shaping up in all-too-familiar ways. The parallels are disturbing: the president, eager to show […]
Pakistan Claims 700 Taliban Dead? Yeah, right.
Color me skeptical, but Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik is claiming Pakistan’s offensive in the NWFP has killed 700 Taliban fighters.
“More than 700 militants have been killed during the last four days. Fifty-two Taliban fighters were killed in Swat in the last 24 hours,” he said. He said the operation would continue till the last Taliban […]
Mullen: Afghanistan is New Strategic Focus
“Afghanistan has been an ‘economy-of-force’ operation for far too long,” Adm. Mike Mullen said. “The Taliban, aided by al-Qaida and other extremists and safe havens across the border, are recruiting through intimidation, controlling through fear and advancing an unwelcome ideology through thuggery.”
From the Dept. of 'I Told You So'...
A Pakistani Army spokesman said the peace agreement between the militants and the government had given Taliban fighters a chance to regroup — as predicted here. This also follows on the heels of the announcement this weekend by the leader of Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM), Maulana Sufi Muhammad, in which he denounced Pakistan’s government, Supreme Court, constitution and parliament as un-Islamic and called for sharia to be implemented throughout Pakistan.
US Navy 3, Somali Pirates 0
Wow, mad props to the Navy SEALS who took out those three pirates holding Capt. Richard Phillips. Seriously, that was some James Bond kind of shooting.
But even so, some may find it hard to believe a band of rag-tag, sandal-wearing, AK-toting malcontents can hold off and frustrate the might and fury of the U.S. Navy, but […]
Interview with Siraj Haqqani
My friend, Eason Jordan, who’s launching AfPax later this year, scores an exclusive interview with Siraj Haqqani, one of the Taliban’s top commanders.
Siraj is the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, head of the al Qaeda-affiliated network that bears his name. Unlike the Baitullah Mehsud group, the Haqqani network doesn’t usually target the Pakistani state, preferring to […]
Afghan Elections: What's Obama to Do?
Posted by Christopher Allbritton on September 7, 2009 at 1:58 pm +0000 · Leave a Comment
Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall of the New York Times have a thoroughly dispiriting story today.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.
The […]
Filed under Afghanistan, Analysis, Commentary, Featured · Tagged with Afghanistan, Britain, Central Asia, Election, Obama, Pakistan, Taliban, Vietnam