Afghanistan News

Our Afghan Strategy

10:39 am EST June 23rd, 2011 | National Security, Terrorism | 17 Comments

I happen to agree with President Obama, though I understand the position of liberals who think we should accelerate leaving Afghanistan. The biggest problem with Afghanistan is that when it became difficult to get Bin Laden, Bush decided our mission in the country was about sending Afghan girls to school.

The problem is, that is not our mission. I’d like Afghan girls to go to school, but the first priority should have been the destruction of Al Qaeda. With the troop surge under President Obama, we’re a lot closer to achieving that goal – in addition to killing Bin Laden.

Afghanistan wasn’t a war of choice. They harbored the terrorist organization that attacked us. President Bush fumbled that conflict, badly, and many Americans died as a result while Bin Laden still lived to taunt us. That has changed, and we’re doing the right thing.

Topic: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, President Obama

PHOTOS: Obama With Troops In Afghanistan

9:10 pm EST December 3rd, 2010 | National Security | 34 Comments

President Barack Obama reaches for a Purple Heart medal which he presented to a wounded soldier at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, Dec. 3, 2010. The President presented five Purple Hearts to soldiers during his overnight trip to Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama visits with a platoon of U.S. troops at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan that recently lost six members, Dec. 3, 2010. The President made an overnight trip to visit troops in Afghanistan.

Topic: Afghanistan, President Obama

Obama In Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

11:09 am EST December 3rd, 2010 | Foreign Policy | 12 Comments

President Obama is in Afghanistan, according to NBC. He’s there to meet with General Petraeus.

Topic: Afghanistan, President Obama

Opposition To “Ground Zero Mosque” Aids The Taliban

9:57 am EST August 30th, 2010 | Religion | 80 Comments

harry reid Talk about actually undermining the troops in a time of war.

Taliban officials know it’s sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that’s exactly what they’re wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. ‘By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,’ Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) ‘It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.’

America’s enemies in Afghanistan are delighted by the vehement public opposition to the proposed ‘Ground Zero mosque.’ The backlash against the project has drawn the heaviest e-mail response ever on jihadi Web sites, Zabihullah claims—far bigger even than France’s ban on burqas earlier this year. (That was big, he recalls: ‘We received many e-mails asking for advice on how Muslims should react to the hijab ban, and how they can punish France.’) This time the target is America itself. ‘We are getting even more messages of support and solidarity on the mosque issue and questions about how to fight back against this outrage.’

Topic: Afghanistan, Ground Zero Mosque, Islam, Taliban

Senior U.S. Commander: Afghanistan Forces At Least A Year Away From Takeover

1:08 am EST August 24th, 2010 | National Security, Terrorism | Comments Off

afghanistan security forces

Link

A senior U.S. commander on Monday wouldn’t predict when Afghanistan might take control of its own security and warned that NATO needs at least another year to recruit and train enough soldiers and police officers.

The assessment by Lt. Gen. Bill Caldwell, the head of NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan, further dims U.S. hopes that the planned U.S. withdrawal next year will be significant in size.

President Barack Obama has said that troops will begin pulling out in July 2011, the size and pace of withdrawal depending on security conditions. Defense officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have said they believe next summer’s pullout would be modest.

Topic: Afghanistan

Petraeus Says Some Taliban Momentum Has Been Reversed

3:08 am EST August 23rd, 2010 | National Security | 6 Comments

Petraeus

Some good news, at least. More video at the link.

The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan says the momentum built up by the Taliban has been reversed in the south of the country and capital Kabul.

General David Petraeus said it was important to destroy the safe havens of Taliban.

I’m wondering how soon the righties will take to turn against Petraeus, and the war in Afghanistan. I mean, they couldn’t possibly support a war being fought by a Democratic president and the general he chose to do so, could they?

Topic: Afghanistan, David Petraeus

Wikileaks Gives Taliban Hitlist Of Afghan Collaborators

8:49 am EST August 3rd, 2010 | Foreign Policy | 7 Comments

Heck of a job, Julian Assange. Your move is getting more Afghans killed.

After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to ‘punish’ any Afghan listed as having ‘collaborated’ with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.

Topic: Afghanistan, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

Wikileaks Puts Afghan Informants In Danger

10:51 am EST July 28th, 2010 | Media | 22 Comments

Great.

Hundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military have been put at risk by WikiLeaks’ publication of more than 90,000 classified intelligence reports which name and in many cases locate the individuals, The Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

The article says, in spite of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s claim that sensitive information had been removed from the leaked documents, that reporters scanning the reports for just a couple hours found hundreds of Afghan names mentioned as aiding the U.S.-led war effort.

Topic: Afghanistan, Wikileaks

Are The Wikileaks Logs Just Another Version Of Breitbart?

9:24 am EST July 28th, 2010 | Media | 3 Comments

Wired:

Echo company got into a gunfight last August 25th in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. You’ll learn that by reading the report found in WikiLeaks’ database. You’ll learn that, after a chase, the marines killed one insurgent. You’ll learn that the insurgents supposedly fled and that the troops – part of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines — decided to stay the night in the area in case the militants returned.

What you won’t learn is that a marine sniper team sparked the shoot-out with a surprise assault on the insurgents; that every member of that team was nearly killed in the battle; that the incident would kick off a three-day siege in which the Taliban nearly had the Echo company squad surrounded; that this spot eventually became an Echo company base; or that, while this extended gun fight was going on, British and Afghan troops were nearby, waging a more gentle form of counterinsurgency as they sat cross-legged under shady patches of farmland and talked with village elders.

I happen to know this because I was there with Echo company, reporting for WIRED magazine. And the wide difference between what actually happened at the Moba Khan compound and what the report says happened there should give caution to those who think they can discover the capital-T truth about the Afghanistan conflict solely through the WikiLeaks war logs.

Context matters.

Topic: Afghanistan, Wikileaks

Insane Mineral Reserves Found In Afghanistan

10:43 pm EST June 13th, 2010 | World | 21 Comments

This is not good. The most valuable stuff keeps popping up in the most volatile regions.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.

The universe is screwing with us.

Topic: Afghanistan