Two recent op-eds published in the British press -- one by Gideon Rachman for the Financial Times (The west has lost in Afghanistan), the other by Con Coughlin for the Telegraph (The West will pay a terrible price if we leave Afghanistan in the lurch) mirror the debate in the United States about whether the ISAF-led war is worth continuing and whether it can be won. Coughlin's highly emotional appeal is offset by Rachman's wry recitation of grim facts.
I think the best resolution to the debate is found outside the two views. The West can't wash its hands of the war but it can continue trying to do so in ways that only prolong the worst aspects of the war. The latest hastily improvised war 'plan' helps the very people the U.S. went into Afghanistan to fight, and exacerbates the very conditions in the Afghan government and society that the ISAF countries find most counterproductive to the war and stabilization efforts in the country.
So this is one person in the two-man canoe bailing water while the other scoops water from the lake and dumps it in the canoe. This is a comedy routine, not a war plan or even an exit plan.
The west has lost in Afghanistan
by Gideon Rachman
March 27, 2012
The Financial Times
Five years ago the Americans were refusing to speak to the Taliban. Now the Taliban are refusing to speak to the Americans. That is a measure of how the balance of power has shifted in Afghanistan. The western intervention there has failed. As Nato prepares to withdraw from the country in 2014, it is only the scale of the defeat that remains to be determined.
A senior Pakistani official comments sardonically: “I remember when the Americans used to say that the only good Taliban was a dead Taliban. Then they talked about separating the reconcilable from the irreconcilable. Now, they say, the Taliban are not our enemy.” In fact, Nato and Taliban forces are still enemies on the battlefield. But in a desperate effort to leave behind a stable Afghanistan, the US and its allies are also battling to include the Taliban in the political process. However, the Taliban are in no rush to negotiate – and recently broke off talks. With western troops on their way out, there is little pressure on them to compromise now.
Although it was the presence of al-Qaeda that led Nato into Afghanistan, the dreadful nature of the Taliban regime gave the fight an extra moral dimension. Visiting western politicians were always eager to visit a newly opened girls’ school – and to stress the progress for women’s rights.
The Americans insist that the Taliban’s participation in the political process is still dependent on them accepting the current Afghan constitution, which contains all sorts of protections for human rights, and commitments to gender equality. But Afghan reality never matched the words on the page. As one EU foreign minister says: “Three-quarters of the population can’t actually read the constitution, because they are illiterate.”
Even under the current government, the situation of Afghan women is pretty grim. Last week Human Rights Watch released a report highlighting the hundreds of women who are currently jailed in Afghanistan for “moral crimes”, such as resisting a forced marriage, or even complaining about rape. But there have been gains for women, too, particularly in schools and in the cities – and these are likely to be threatened as the Taliban regains influence. For Hillary Clinton, who has made the promotion of women’s rights a theme of her time at the US state department, this must be an especially bitter pill.
The reality, however, is that the killing of Osama bin Laden last year has given the US government all the “closure” it needs to justify a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Nato’s goals for the country are now minimal and focused entirely on security: Afghanistan must never again provide a haven for terrorists – and the country must not become a “failed state”.
Even these minimal goals may not be achieved. The focus of Nato’s efforts has been training and equipping the Afghan security forces, so that they can take over from western troops. But funding the Afghan military costs $8bn-$9bn a year. Will the west continue to be willing to plough that sort of money into Afghanistan – with so many competing claims on funds? If not, as Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister put it at this weekend’s Brussels forum: “We will have given 100,000 people training and a gun, and then made them unemployed.”
Even if the Afghan military hangs together, Afghanistan is quite likely to descend into civil war. That, in turn, is likely to continue to further radicalise the Pakistani Taliban – because of the tribal, military and religious links on either side of the border.
When President Barack Obama came to power, he privately labelled Pakistan “the most frightening country in the world” – and insisted that the Afghan problem could not be separated from the fate of its much larger neighbour: hence the insistence on the ugly term “AfPak”. In the rush to get western troops out of Afghanistan, however, the Pakistani problem is in danger of being neglected.
That too is a mistake, because the situation in Pakistan is just as frightening as when Mr Obama took power. Mr Bildt, a recent visitor to the country, describes it as being in the grip of “hysterical anti-Americanism”. That mood will only be intensified by the news over the weekend that no US servicemen will face charges over the Nato air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November.
The idea that the US is plotting to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has become an obsession, both for the Pakistani media and for much of the country’s ruling class. In response, Pakistan is cranking up the production of nuclear weapons and distributing them all over the country. Given the radicalisation of opinion in the country and the amount of fissile material it is producing, the American nightmare of “loose nukes” is looking uncomfortably realistic.
As a result, the US will remain deeply engaged in counter-terrorism in south Asia. But the drone strikes on jihadists in the tribal areas of Pakistan – which have been the source of America’s biggest successes – are a double-edged sword. They have devastated the leadership of al-Qaeda. But they have also fed the rampant anti-Americanism that can breed the next generation of terrorists.
As a top Pakistani official puts it: “The number three in al-Qaeda has been killed at least five times. But there is always a new number three. It is the mentality that gives rise to al-Qaeda that you need to defeat.” Unfortunately, that mentality is once again on the rise – in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
****END****
The West will pay a terrible price if we leave Afghanistan in the lurch
By Con Coughlin
March 30, 2012
Telegraph
The regime in Kabul needs significant military and financial aid to hold off the Taliban after Nato's withdrawal.
As someone who has been an unapologetic defender of the military campaign in Afghanistan, I found visiting the British war cemetery in Kabul this week a deeply humbling experience.
Set into the crumbling, whitewashed walls is a poignant memorial to all our brave men and women who have lost their lives fighting for a cause few these days either comprehend or support. The plaque listing their names is next to a monument to the victims of another era of British military involvement in Afghanistan – those who perished in our two ill-fated military interventions in the 19th century.
There had been 150 neatly marked graves in the cemetery of those who fought in the campaigns of 1839-1842 and 1879-1881, but when British troops returned to Kabul in 2001, following the overthrow of the Taliban, they found the cemetery had been desecrated, the headstones vandalised – no doubt the doing of Taliban sympathisers. The headstones have since been lovingly restored.
But I am struck by this awful thought: unless there is a radical change in the way the conflict is going, the well-tended graveyard may once again end up being pulled apart by a resurgent Taliban.
When I entered the cemetery, the total number of British war dead in Afghanistan stood at 405; by the time I left an hour later, that had risen to 407. Two soldiers had been shot dead by an Afghan officer who had, apparently, taken exception to their refusal to grant him permission to enter the British base at Lashkar Gar because he did not have proper accreditation.
What is particularly depressing about this “green on blue” incident – in Nato-speak, the Afghans are “green” and Nato soldiers are “blue” – is that one of the main reasons we still have a division deployed to southern Afghanistan is to help transform the native security forces into a credible fighting unit. If our troops are to be withdrawn from harm’s way, then the Afghans need to reach a level of competence and effectiveness that enables them to take charge of their country’s security, rather than relying on a motley collection of foreign forces – there are currently 50 nations contributing to Nato’s mission – to do the job for them.
Why not let them sort out their own mess, I hear you cry? We have paid a high enough price for this benighted country, and all the thanks we get is Afghans turning their guns on our soldiers. If only it were that easy.
Politicians on both side of the Atlantic are determined that, at the very latest, all Nato combat operations will have ceased by the end of 2014. The only problem with this laudable plan is that, as things stand, there is no realistic prospect of the Afghans being in a position to take care of themselves in two years’ time.
For a start, their security and police forces, though vastly improved from the rabble inherited by Nato when it first deployed to the country in the summer of 2006, rely heavily on the backing of Western troops – primarily American and British – to conduct missions.
And it is likely that they are going to need our support well beyond the proposed withdrawal date. Afghan army recruits have proved themselves to be good fighters – which is hardly surprising in a country where random butchery is a national pastime. But sustaining a competent military operation requires more than good fighting qualities: logistics, intelligence and air support also have a crucial role to play.
If, however, the West’s support for Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal amounts to no more than running the equivalent of Sandhurst in Kabul, as outlined by Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, this week, then the country’s military will simply collapse, with all the implications that will have for their security and ours.
“It is wishful thinking to think the Afghans can stand on their own when we finish fighting in 2014,” a senior Nato official told me in Kabul. “They are going to need all kinds of help – helicopters, intelligence, training – if they are going to be able to stand up to the Taliban and their allies when we leave.”
There is certainly no suggestion that the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies are on the point of renouncing their campaign of terror against the West and allowing Afghanistan to settle back into its former role as Central Asia’s main trading hub.
The almost daily attacks on Nato forces suggest the Taliban has no desire to commit to peace negotiations, while the recent spate of shootings by an al-Qaeda gunman in Toulouse has again highlighted the value of southern Afghanistan as a training centre for Islamist militants. Mohamed Merah, the 24-year-old Frenchman who killed seven people during a week-long shooting spree, visited Kandahar as recently as 2010, as part of his rite of passage from petty criminal to full-blown al-Qaeda terrorist.
Intelligence officials have told me that there are hundreds of al-Qaeda sympathisers in neighbouring Pakistan just waiting for the opportunity to return to Afghanistan and re-establish the training camps that were used to mastermind the September 11 attacks.
The other area where the West must demonstrate its commitment after 2014 is in its willingness to continue financing the Afghan government and military for at least another decade, until the country is able to develop its economy to the point where it can pay for itself. Compared to the tens of billions of dollars that have poured in during the past decade, the cost of post-2014 support is a relatively modest $4.3 billion.
But such is the general mood of apathy in the West that it is proving difficult even to raise this sum ahead of May’s Nato summit in Chicago, when the future of Western commitment will be discussed.
Sir William Patey, who retires as Britain’s ambassador to Kabul today , told me when I visited him at his office at the heavily fortified British Embassy that “we should get out now” if we were not prepared, at the very least, to fund the Afghans until 2024. Britain’s policy of withdrawing its troops and leaving the country in a stable state “is totally dependent on the international community to bankroll the Afghans for a number of years to come”, he said.
Certainly, if Afghanistan is allowed to revert to its former anarchy, then many more deluded young men like Mohamed Merah will be making their way to al-Qaeda training camps in the country.
And if that happens, then the sacrifices of the brave British men and women who are commemorated in the military cemetery in Kabul will have been in vain.
****END****
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
With Amrullah Saleh and his deputy gone from NDS, "western officials began to notice a deterioration in the security situation"
War in Afghanistan: Mission impossible?
By Kim Sengupta
March 28, 2012
The Independent
The threat of roadside bombs is constant, and the mortal danger posed by the local forces they are meant to be training is on the rise. Now a cache of explosive vests has been found hidden in the Ministry of Defence in Kabul
The discovery of a dozen suicide vests packed with explosives in Kabul was a matter of deep concern, a grim indication that the Taliban were intent on carrying out a massive attack. The added shockwaves came from the location: they were found in the country's Ministry of Defence, less than a mile from President Hamid Karzai's residence and the headquarters of Western forces.
Eighteen serving soldiers were arrested. They were planning, it is claimed, to blow up the building and everyone in it as well as buses full of government employees. Yesterday afternoon there were contradictory accounts of what had happened from different ministries, while commandos searched the premises after reports that two would-be bombers had escaped and were still hiding there.
The extraordinary events in the Afghan capital came 24 hours after two British servicemen were murdered by an Afghan soldier at Lashkar Gah, the British headquarters in Helmand, and an American soldier was shot dead by an Afghan policeman at a checkpoint in Paktika.So far this year, 16 Nato soldiers have been killed by their Afghan allies, second only to fatalities caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the insurgents' weapon of choice.
According to Pentagon figures released last month, an estimated 80 Western service members have been killed by Afghans in uniform since 2007, with 75 per cent of the attacks in the past two years. The fear of an enemy within is particularly relevant at this time in the mission, with the West's exit strategy predicated on training Afghan forces to take over security and, after Nato ends is combat status, a small number carrying on acting as advisers.
With the West's rush for the exit from the war depending on building up the size of Afghan security forces, some Afghan officials say that corners were being cut when it came to security checks. "The foreigners just want the numbers keep going up so that they can say they have finished their job and it is time to go," said one official. "In such situations it is not surprising that some bad people are slipping through."
General John Allen, the American head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (Isaf ) insisted that these types of attacks are to be expected in this type of war. "We experienced these in Iraq. We experienced them in Vietnam. On any occasion where you're dealing with an insurgency and where you're also growing an indigenous force... the enemy's going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operations and the developing nation's security forces."
Gen Allen acknowledged, however, that precautionary measures have had to be taken. "We have taken steps necessary on our side to protect ourselves with respect to, in fact, sleeping arrangements, internal defences associated with those small bases in which we operate, the posture of our forces, to have someone always overwatching our forces. On the Afghan side, they are doing the same thing. They're helping the troops to understand how to recognise radicalisation or the emergence of extremism in individuals who may in fact be suspect."
One force which was seen as keeping the Islamists at bay – especially from Kabul and other major cities – and out of the armed forces, was the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. However, its head, Amrullah Saleh, resigned two years ago in protest at what he claimed was President Karzai surrounding himself with Islamists. His deputy, Abdullah Laghmani, had been assassinated by a Taliban suicide bomber a few months previously. With the two men gone, western officials began to notice a deterioration in the security situation.
Taliban attacks in Kabul have increased since. But although the preparations for the bombing inside the Defence Ministry were obviously part of an organised operation, there is little hard evidence of systematic large-scale infiltration.
Afghan observers hold that most of the recent attacks by Afghan security forces on their western colleagues have been sparked by anger at the burning of Korans by US officials at Bagram air base and the massacre of 17 villagers by US sergeant Robert Bales.
Interventions by President Karzai, such as describing the US and British troops as "devils" and the Koran burning – a crass mistake but not something done out of malice – as "an act which can never be forgiven" have also been inflammatory in the febrile atmosphere.
Following the killing of five soldiers from the Grenadier Guards Battle Group in Nad-e-Ali by an Afghan they were training, called Asadullah, stricter vetting procedures were brought in including more thorough background checks and biometric testing. However, in August 2010 three more soldiers, from the Royal Gurkha Rifles, were killed in Nahr-e-Seraj by an Afghan soldier, Talib Hussein.
Haji Wassim Nasruddin, who once fought alongside the insurgents in Pashmul, near Kandahar, but gave up arms under a reconciliation programme, and now lives in Kandahar City, said: "We never organised our young men to join the police and army.
"We hated the police in particular, because they were corrupt. But because they were corrupt, they sometimes helped us and because they were afraid, they sometimes helped us. And, of course, if any of them attacked foreigners ,we would give them shelter and call them true Muslims."
Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban foreign ministry official and now an analyst of the insurgency, agreed. "All these killings are not linked to the Taliban. The recent Koran burnings and the shooting of children are affecting the minds of the Afghan soldiers. They think: if the foreigners are coming here to defend Afghanistan, why are they killing children?
"But it is effective, trust is being undermined between the international forces and the Afghans. How can foreign soldiers mentor if they are worried about the Afghans they are teaching? It is not possible."
By Kim Sengupta
March 28, 2012
The Independent
The threat of roadside bombs is constant, and the mortal danger posed by the local forces they are meant to be training is on the rise. Now a cache of explosive vests has been found hidden in the Ministry of Defence in Kabul
The discovery of a dozen suicide vests packed with explosives in Kabul was a matter of deep concern, a grim indication that the Taliban were intent on carrying out a massive attack. The added shockwaves came from the location: they were found in the country's Ministry of Defence, less than a mile from President Hamid Karzai's residence and the headquarters of Western forces.
Eighteen serving soldiers were arrested. They were planning, it is claimed, to blow up the building and everyone in it as well as buses full of government employees. Yesterday afternoon there were contradictory accounts of what had happened from different ministries, while commandos searched the premises after reports that two would-be bombers had escaped and were still hiding there.
The extraordinary events in the Afghan capital came 24 hours after two British servicemen were murdered by an Afghan soldier at Lashkar Gah, the British headquarters in Helmand, and an American soldier was shot dead by an Afghan policeman at a checkpoint in Paktika.So far this year, 16 Nato soldiers have been killed by their Afghan allies, second only to fatalities caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the insurgents' weapon of choice.
According to Pentagon figures released last month, an estimated 80 Western service members have been killed by Afghans in uniform since 2007, with 75 per cent of the attacks in the past two years. The fear of an enemy within is particularly relevant at this time in the mission, with the West's exit strategy predicated on training Afghan forces to take over security and, after Nato ends is combat status, a small number carrying on acting as advisers.
With the West's rush for the exit from the war depending on building up the size of Afghan security forces, some Afghan officials say that corners were being cut when it came to security checks. "The foreigners just want the numbers keep going up so that they can say they have finished their job and it is time to go," said one official. "In such situations it is not surprising that some bad people are slipping through."
General John Allen, the American head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (Isaf ) insisted that these types of attacks are to be expected in this type of war. "We experienced these in Iraq. We experienced them in Vietnam. On any occasion where you're dealing with an insurgency and where you're also growing an indigenous force... the enemy's going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operations and the developing nation's security forces."
Gen Allen acknowledged, however, that precautionary measures have had to be taken. "We have taken steps necessary on our side to protect ourselves with respect to, in fact, sleeping arrangements, internal defences associated with those small bases in which we operate, the posture of our forces, to have someone always overwatching our forces. On the Afghan side, they are doing the same thing. They're helping the troops to understand how to recognise radicalisation or the emergence of extremism in individuals who may in fact be suspect."
One force which was seen as keeping the Islamists at bay – especially from Kabul and other major cities – and out of the armed forces, was the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. However, its head, Amrullah Saleh, resigned two years ago in protest at what he claimed was President Karzai surrounding himself with Islamists. His deputy, Abdullah Laghmani, had been assassinated by a Taliban suicide bomber a few months previously. With the two men gone, western officials began to notice a deterioration in the security situation.
Taliban attacks in Kabul have increased since. But although the preparations for the bombing inside the Defence Ministry were obviously part of an organised operation, there is little hard evidence of systematic large-scale infiltration.
Afghan observers hold that most of the recent attacks by Afghan security forces on their western colleagues have been sparked by anger at the burning of Korans by US officials at Bagram air base and the massacre of 17 villagers by US sergeant Robert Bales.
Interventions by President Karzai, such as describing the US and British troops as "devils" and the Koran burning – a crass mistake but not something done out of malice – as "an act which can never be forgiven" have also been inflammatory in the febrile atmosphere.
Following the killing of five soldiers from the Grenadier Guards Battle Group in Nad-e-Ali by an Afghan they were training, called Asadullah, stricter vetting procedures were brought in including more thorough background checks and biometric testing. However, in August 2010 three more soldiers, from the Royal Gurkha Rifles, were killed in Nahr-e-Seraj by an Afghan soldier, Talib Hussein.
Haji Wassim Nasruddin, who once fought alongside the insurgents in Pashmul, near Kandahar, but gave up arms under a reconciliation programme, and now lives in Kandahar City, said: "We never organised our young men to join the police and army.
"We hated the police in particular, because they were corrupt. But because they were corrupt, they sometimes helped us and because they were afraid, they sometimes helped us. And, of course, if any of them attacked foreigners ,we would give them shelter and call them true Muslims."
Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban foreign ministry official and now an analyst of the insurgency, agreed. "All these killings are not linked to the Taliban. The recent Koran burnings and the shooting of children are affecting the minds of the Afghan soldiers. They think: if the foreigners are coming here to defend Afghanistan, why are they killing children?
"But it is effective, trust is being undermined between the international forces and the Afghans. How can foreign soldiers mentor if they are worried about the Afghans they are teaching? It is not possible."
Despite much progress for Afghan women their situation is still grim
Afghanistan’s War on Women Detailed in New Human Rights Watch Report
By Jesse Ellison
March 28, 2012
The Daily Beast
The plight of Afghanistan’s women was supposed to improve with the Taliban’s ouster, but a new Human Rights Watch report shows the injustice persists, detailing the cases of 60 women and girls in prison for ‘moral crimes’ like premarital sex and fleeing abusers.
When Heather Barr began interviewing female Afghan prisoners and detainees for a new Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday, one phrase stood out. “So many of them started out saying, ‘I fell in love with a boy,’” Barr told The Daily Beast from her home in Kabul. “They’re like teenage girls anywhere. But in Afghanistan, you end up in prison.”
At least, these ones did. The report, “I Had to Run Away: Women and Girls Imprisoned for ‘Moral Crimes’ in Afghanistan,” details the plight of nearly 60 Afghan women and girls—just a fraction of the estimated 400 overall—languishing in prisons and juvenile detention facilities for various “moral crimes,” including running away from impending forced marriages, fleeing abusers, and having premarital sex. In telling their specific stories of abuse and mistreatment, the report also examines a “twin injustice:” Where women may face vigorous prosecution and imprisonment for their so-called transgressions, their abusers and rapists rarely face any consequence at all, despite the fact that the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women was ratified by President Hamid Karzai in 2009.
“Almost always, the story starts out with the girl or woman running away from some kind of abuse,” Barr says of the female prisoners she and her translators interviewed in six different facilities across the country. “So most of the women we interviewed are crime victims, but what you find is that none of the perpetrators of those crimes have been investigated, let alone prosecuted.”
According to a report released last fall by Oxfam International, some 87 percent of Afghan women have experienced intimate violence, whether in the form of forced marriage, or physical, sexual, or psychological abuse. Of the 42 married women Barr interviewed, 22 were arrested as a direct result of running away from abusive husbands or extended family members. But in interviews with prosecutors, Barr could find just one instance when a man had been arrested for perpetrating such abuse. A woman the report identifies as “Nilofar M.” (All the women’s names and identifying details were withheld by HRW in order to protect their safety.), was hospitalized after being stabbed repeatedly in the head, chest, and arms with a screwdriver. Her husband was arrested, but released after just a month. When asked why he had been released so quickly, the prosecutor told Barr that, “The way he beat her wasn’t bad enough to keep him in jail. She wasn’t near death, so he didn’t need to be in prison.”
Then the prosecutor drove the point home. “He was standing over me and he brandished his fist, and he said, ‘If I only punched you, should I be in prison?’” Barr recounted. “This is the mindset. This is the attitude.”
Indeed, while the number of women imprisoned for “moral crimes” may have increased in the last decade—according to the latest United Nations figures, some 600 women and more than 100 girls are currently serving sentences, more than Afghanistan’s total prison population before the U.S. invasion in 2001—efforts like the 2009 decree are still largely anathema to a culture and tradition that has long treated women as little more than property. A spate of recent cases made international headlines because of brutal details that underscored the ongoing contempt for women in the region.
“I don’t think there’s any excuse [for the West] to walk away. Because it’s life or death for women here.”
Earlier this year, a 15-year-old girl who had been sold into marriage was found locked in the basement bathroom of her in-laws’ home, where she had been denied food and water and had been tortured for ++refusing to go into prostitution. And in December, President Karzai pardoned a young woman who had spent two years in jail for adultery after being raped by her cousin’s husband. Her release was bittersweet; it was accompanied by concern for her safety and speculation that she would have little choice but to marry her rapist to avoid further shame for her family.
“Being pardoned doesn’t solve an injustice,” Barr says. “And for these women, just the fact of being arrested for a moral crime is very likely to create a situation where your family won’t take you back. One of the things that was the most heartbreaking [about these interviews] was how grateful some of these women and girls seemed to be for these prisons. One of the women said, ‘I chose this prison as my safe place.’”
But Barr says the new report is intended to not only shed light on the plight of these female prisoners, but also to open up a broader conversation about Afghan women in general. “It would be wrong to minimize the progress that has happened,” she says, citing decreased rates of child and maternal mortality, and the sky-rocketing numbers of female political participation and access to education since the days of Taliban rule. “On the other hand, the progress has been a lot less than women heard or expected in the optimistic days since the Taliban fell. And it’s really fragile.”
With international forces slated to depart Afghanistan in 2014, the progress made thus far seems especially precarious. In March, just two days before International Women’s Day, Karzai sent what many perceived as a particularly ominous message, defending a “code of conduct” issued by the government-supported Ulema Council, a body of religious leaders, on how women should act and behave. “Men are fundamental and women are secondary,” the statement said. It was later posted on the website of the presidential palace.
“The international community needs to look back at some of the things they said in 2001,” Barr says citing speeches made by then President George W. Bush, Cherie Blair, and others about the importance of liberating Afghan women. “Those were promises. I don’t think there’s any excuse to walk away. Because it’s life or death for women here.”
Jesse Ellison is a staff writer and articles editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, covering social justice and women’s issues. A Front Page Award winner, she has discussed gender equality on CNN, WNYC, and at Princeton University. Find her on Tumblr.
By Jesse Ellison
March 28, 2012
The Daily Beast
The plight of Afghanistan’s women was supposed to improve with the Taliban’s ouster, but a new Human Rights Watch report shows the injustice persists, detailing the cases of 60 women and girls in prison for ‘moral crimes’ like premarital sex and fleeing abusers.
When Heather Barr began interviewing female Afghan prisoners and detainees for a new Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday, one phrase stood out. “So many of them started out saying, ‘I fell in love with a boy,’” Barr told The Daily Beast from her home in Kabul. “They’re like teenage girls anywhere. But in Afghanistan, you end up in prison.”
At least, these ones did. The report, “I Had to Run Away: Women and Girls Imprisoned for ‘Moral Crimes’ in Afghanistan,” details the plight of nearly 60 Afghan women and girls—just a fraction of the estimated 400 overall—languishing in prisons and juvenile detention facilities for various “moral crimes,” including running away from impending forced marriages, fleeing abusers, and having premarital sex. In telling their specific stories of abuse and mistreatment, the report also examines a “twin injustice:” Where women may face vigorous prosecution and imprisonment for their so-called transgressions, their abusers and rapists rarely face any consequence at all, despite the fact that the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women was ratified by President Hamid Karzai in 2009.
“Almost always, the story starts out with the girl or woman running away from some kind of abuse,” Barr says of the female prisoners she and her translators interviewed in six different facilities across the country. “So most of the women we interviewed are crime victims, but what you find is that none of the perpetrators of those crimes have been investigated, let alone prosecuted.”
According to a report released last fall by Oxfam International, some 87 percent of Afghan women have experienced intimate violence, whether in the form of forced marriage, or physical, sexual, or psychological abuse. Of the 42 married women Barr interviewed, 22 were arrested as a direct result of running away from abusive husbands or extended family members. But in interviews with prosecutors, Barr could find just one instance when a man had been arrested for perpetrating such abuse. A woman the report identifies as “Nilofar M.” (All the women’s names and identifying details were withheld by HRW in order to protect their safety.), was hospitalized after being stabbed repeatedly in the head, chest, and arms with a screwdriver. Her husband was arrested, but released after just a month. When asked why he had been released so quickly, the prosecutor told Barr that, “The way he beat her wasn’t bad enough to keep him in jail. She wasn’t near death, so he didn’t need to be in prison.”
Then the prosecutor drove the point home. “He was standing over me and he brandished his fist, and he said, ‘If I only punched you, should I be in prison?’” Barr recounted. “This is the mindset. This is the attitude.”
Indeed, while the number of women imprisoned for “moral crimes” may have increased in the last decade—according to the latest United Nations figures, some 600 women and more than 100 girls are currently serving sentences, more than Afghanistan’s total prison population before the U.S. invasion in 2001—efforts like the 2009 decree are still largely anathema to a culture and tradition that has long treated women as little more than property. A spate of recent cases made international headlines because of brutal details that underscored the ongoing contempt for women in the region.
“I don’t think there’s any excuse [for the West] to walk away. Because it’s life or death for women here.”
Earlier this year, a 15-year-old girl who had been sold into marriage was found locked in the basement bathroom of her in-laws’ home, where she had been denied food and water and had been tortured for ++refusing to go into prostitution. And in December, President Karzai pardoned a young woman who had spent two years in jail for adultery after being raped by her cousin’s husband. Her release was bittersweet; it was accompanied by concern for her safety and speculation that she would have little choice but to marry her rapist to avoid further shame for her family.
“Being pardoned doesn’t solve an injustice,” Barr says. “And for these women, just the fact of being arrested for a moral crime is very likely to create a situation where your family won’t take you back. One of the things that was the most heartbreaking [about these interviews] was how grateful some of these women and girls seemed to be for these prisons. One of the women said, ‘I chose this prison as my safe place.’”
But Barr says the new report is intended to not only shed light on the plight of these female prisoners, but also to open up a broader conversation about Afghan women in general. “It would be wrong to minimize the progress that has happened,” she says, citing decreased rates of child and maternal mortality, and the sky-rocketing numbers of female political participation and access to education since the days of Taliban rule. “On the other hand, the progress has been a lot less than women heard or expected in the optimistic days since the Taliban fell. And it’s really fragile.”
With international forces slated to depart Afghanistan in 2014, the progress made thus far seems especially precarious. In March, just two days before International Women’s Day, Karzai sent what many perceived as a particularly ominous message, defending a “code of conduct” issued by the government-supported Ulema Council, a body of religious leaders, on how women should act and behave. “Men are fundamental and women are secondary,” the statement said. It was later posted on the website of the presidential palace.
“The international community needs to look back at some of the things they said in 2001,” Barr says citing speeches made by then President George W. Bush, Cherie Blair, and others about the importance of liberating Afghan women. “Those were promises. I don’t think there’s any excuse to walk away. Because it’s life or death for women here.”
Jesse Ellison is a staff writer and articles editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast, covering social justice and women’s issues. A Front Page Award winner, she has discussed gender equality on CNN, WNYC, and at Princeton University. Find her on Tumblr.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker on holding the line in Afghanistan
See the Long War Journal for more on Amb. Crocker's warnings.
Regarding Crocker's statement that Afghan women won't allow themselves to be put back in the burqa -- my understanding is that many of them have returned to wearing the burqa, even in the north, out of fear and because of intimidation and threats.
Interview: Amb. Ryan Crocker warns against war fatigue in AfghanistanBy Howard LaFranchi
March 27, 2012
Christian Science Monitor
Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Afghanistan, sees progress amid an extended 'rough' patch in relations. He also cautions against quitting Afghanistan too soon, citing Al Qaeda. 'If we decide we're tired, ... they'll be back.'
Kabul - It’s not news to anyone that the United States and the international community have recently experienced some rough weeks in Afghanistan. But if there’s a silver lining to the clouds hanging over the American-led war effort here, it’s that the terrible recent events – the unintentional burning of Qurans by American forces and ensuing civil unrest, the revenge killings of US and other international forces by “friendly” Afghan soldiers, and the horrific murders of 17 Afghan villagers allegedly committed by a US Army sergeant – have provided a measure of Afghanistan’s progress, and of the importance of a continuing international commitment.
That’s the message of the US ambassador to Kabul, Ryan Crocker, who counters reports of doom for the US mission in Afghanistan with evidence of progress – even as he warns of the consequences for America’s national security of giving in to war fatigue and pulling out.
“We’ve had a rough fall, a rough winter – and we are having a rough spring,” acknowledges Ambassador Crocker, who then shifts focus to two signs of a stronger, more mature Afghanistan as revealed by the recent trial by fire.
First, the Afghan security forces that NATO and other international partners are training to take over command of the country’s security kept control of an explosive domestic climate after the Quran burnings, protecting both Afghans and foreign forces with minimal loss of life.
“It was Afghan security forces who stepped up. They protected Afghan lives, and they protected American lives [and] the lives of others from the international community,” he says, noting that 30 Afghans were reported to have died in the days of unrest.
“That’s not too darn bad given the volatility of the situation.”
Second, Crocker underscores the fact that, despite some turbulence, the US-Afghanistan negotiations toward reaching a Strategic Partnership Agreement – the framework that will determine the US military role in Afghanistan after 2014 – weathered the trying events and are moving forward.
“We’re making very significant headway” in negotiations, he says, “and we’re doing it under particularly difficult conditions.”
Crocker says such signposts of progress should encourage both the US and the international community to muster the “strategic patience” that will be necessary for sticking with a country that may seem to be progressing slowly – but which to abandon would be to open the way to potential recurrences of the 9/11 tragedy. The two countries have already settled the thorny issue of the conditions for handing over some 3,000 detainees in US custody to Afghan authority, while the question of night raids by foreign forces is still under discussion.
The night raids – troops entering sleeping villages to ferret out insurgents and suspected terrorists – are particularly unpopular among Afghans, and they raise the ire of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who considers them a stab at Afghan sovereignty. But US military commanders consider the tactic an essential tool in the anti-Taliban effort, and the US insists on the ability to rely on the raids in the counterterrorism efforts it wants to continue after the international combat role ends in December 2014.
Some US and international military officials hint that an accord on night raids is likely, perhaps by assuaging Mr. Karzai’s sovereignty concerns with a provision requiring a warrant from an Afghan judge. Crocker calls the Strategic Partnership Agreement, or SPA, “a powerful signal to the Taliban” that the international community will remain committed to Afghanistan into the future.
What the Taliban need to understand, he says, is that “this isn’t going to be about holding out until 2014. It’s you getting killed,” he says, “or dying of old age and your sons facing the prospect of having to fight a war.”
Others say the US SPA will be a reassuring sign to the international community and will help head off the “rush to the exits” that President Obama has warned against. The strategic partnership negotiations are just one example of what Crocker calls the “really really hard” process of helping a country like Afghanistan remake itself.
He might add expensive, too, although he notes that whatever financial commitment the US makes to Afghanistan in the years after the formal end of the combat mission will pale in comparison to the $12 billion a year the US now spends.
But if Americans are tempted by the siren of a complete pullout from Afghanistan, Crocker says they need to remember the 9/11 attacks and Al Qaeda’s command center that brought the US here in the first place.
“If we decide we’re tired they’ll be back,” he says, referring to Al Qaeda. “We know what they did once. They haven’t gotten any kinder or gentler in the decade.” Crocker – who has the “unique” perspective of having returned to Afghanistan after a first stint as ambassador in 2002 following the fall of the Taliban regime – says the country’s progress is impressive but not irreversible, and requires an international commitment to sustain it.
Continuing improvements in the Afghan National Army and national police are one element. The Afghan security forces, which are now the primary providers of security to about half the country, should be able to expand to providing “immediate security” to about 75 percent of Afghans by midsummer, Crocker says.
Other encouraging factors, he adds, are rising education rates, falling infant and maternal mortality rates in one of the world’s poorest countries, development of a professional class of young leaders, and prospects for impressive economic gains from unexploited natural resources. He also points to expanded women’s rights, which he cites as a key priority for the US.
Noting that some Afghan women have expressed fears of a rollback of women’s advances in the event of a weakened international commitment, Crocker says neither young Afghans nor the US are about to let that happen. “I know what my boss thinks about this,” says Crocker, referring to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s outspoken commitment to advancing Afghan women’s rights. But he also says the female university students he meets with here would never accept a reversion to the past.
“They’re not going to be put back in a burkha, believe me,” he says. Crocker offers a modest definition of the Afghanistan he believes should be the realistic goal of Afghans and the international community: “a basically secure, basically stable, basically democratic country that can look after its own interests.” And he says Afghanistan has the advantage of a “post-9/11, post-Taliban generation” that is better-educated, and that knows the promise of freedom and democratic governance.
“There’s never been a generation like that in Afghanistan,” he says. But he also warns that this new Afghanistan, which lives with the pull of old ways, has to know the world is not turning its back.
“If the Afghans think we’re done, that we’re pulling pitch,” he says, “they’ll revert to old tendencies.”
Regarding Crocker's statement that Afghan women won't allow themselves to be put back in the burqa -- my understanding is that many of them have returned to wearing the burqa, even in the north, out of fear and because of intimidation and threats.
Interview: Amb. Ryan Crocker warns against war fatigue in AfghanistanBy Howard LaFranchi
March 27, 2012
Christian Science Monitor
Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Afghanistan, sees progress amid an extended 'rough' patch in relations. He also cautions against quitting Afghanistan too soon, citing Al Qaeda. 'If we decide we're tired, ... they'll be back.'
Kabul - It’s not news to anyone that the United States and the international community have recently experienced some rough weeks in Afghanistan. But if there’s a silver lining to the clouds hanging over the American-led war effort here, it’s that the terrible recent events – the unintentional burning of Qurans by American forces and ensuing civil unrest, the revenge killings of US and other international forces by “friendly” Afghan soldiers, and the horrific murders of 17 Afghan villagers allegedly committed by a US Army sergeant – have provided a measure of Afghanistan’s progress, and of the importance of a continuing international commitment.
That’s the message of the US ambassador to Kabul, Ryan Crocker, who counters reports of doom for the US mission in Afghanistan with evidence of progress – even as he warns of the consequences for America’s national security of giving in to war fatigue and pulling out.
“We’ve had a rough fall, a rough winter – and we are having a rough spring,” acknowledges Ambassador Crocker, who then shifts focus to two signs of a stronger, more mature Afghanistan as revealed by the recent trial by fire.
First, the Afghan security forces that NATO and other international partners are training to take over command of the country’s security kept control of an explosive domestic climate after the Quran burnings, protecting both Afghans and foreign forces with minimal loss of life.
“It was Afghan security forces who stepped up. They protected Afghan lives, and they protected American lives [and] the lives of others from the international community,” he says, noting that 30 Afghans were reported to have died in the days of unrest.
“That’s not too darn bad given the volatility of the situation.”
Second, Crocker underscores the fact that, despite some turbulence, the US-Afghanistan negotiations toward reaching a Strategic Partnership Agreement – the framework that will determine the US military role in Afghanistan after 2014 – weathered the trying events and are moving forward.
“We’re making very significant headway” in negotiations, he says, “and we’re doing it under particularly difficult conditions.”
Crocker says such signposts of progress should encourage both the US and the international community to muster the “strategic patience” that will be necessary for sticking with a country that may seem to be progressing slowly – but which to abandon would be to open the way to potential recurrences of the 9/11 tragedy. The two countries have already settled the thorny issue of the conditions for handing over some 3,000 detainees in US custody to Afghan authority, while the question of night raids by foreign forces is still under discussion.
The night raids – troops entering sleeping villages to ferret out insurgents and suspected terrorists – are particularly unpopular among Afghans, and they raise the ire of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who considers them a stab at Afghan sovereignty. But US military commanders consider the tactic an essential tool in the anti-Taliban effort, and the US insists on the ability to rely on the raids in the counterterrorism efforts it wants to continue after the international combat role ends in December 2014.
Some US and international military officials hint that an accord on night raids is likely, perhaps by assuaging Mr. Karzai’s sovereignty concerns with a provision requiring a warrant from an Afghan judge. Crocker calls the Strategic Partnership Agreement, or SPA, “a powerful signal to the Taliban” that the international community will remain committed to Afghanistan into the future.
What the Taliban need to understand, he says, is that “this isn’t going to be about holding out until 2014. It’s you getting killed,” he says, “or dying of old age and your sons facing the prospect of having to fight a war.”
Others say the US SPA will be a reassuring sign to the international community and will help head off the “rush to the exits” that President Obama has warned against. The strategic partnership negotiations are just one example of what Crocker calls the “really really hard” process of helping a country like Afghanistan remake itself.
He might add expensive, too, although he notes that whatever financial commitment the US makes to Afghanistan in the years after the formal end of the combat mission will pale in comparison to the $12 billion a year the US now spends.
But if Americans are tempted by the siren of a complete pullout from Afghanistan, Crocker says they need to remember the 9/11 attacks and Al Qaeda’s command center that brought the US here in the first place.
“If we decide we’re tired they’ll be back,” he says, referring to Al Qaeda. “We know what they did once. They haven’t gotten any kinder or gentler in the decade.” Crocker – who has the “unique” perspective of having returned to Afghanistan after a first stint as ambassador in 2002 following the fall of the Taliban regime – says the country’s progress is impressive but not irreversible, and requires an international commitment to sustain it.
Continuing improvements in the Afghan National Army and national police are one element. The Afghan security forces, which are now the primary providers of security to about half the country, should be able to expand to providing “immediate security” to about 75 percent of Afghans by midsummer, Crocker says.
Other encouraging factors, he adds, are rising education rates, falling infant and maternal mortality rates in one of the world’s poorest countries, development of a professional class of young leaders, and prospects for impressive economic gains from unexploited natural resources. He also points to expanded women’s rights, which he cites as a key priority for the US.
Noting that some Afghan women have expressed fears of a rollback of women’s advances in the event of a weakened international commitment, Crocker says neither young Afghans nor the US are about to let that happen. “I know what my boss thinks about this,” says Crocker, referring to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s outspoken commitment to advancing Afghan women’s rights. But he also says the female university students he meets with here would never accept a reversion to the past.
“They’re not going to be put back in a burkha, believe me,” he says. Crocker offers a modest definition of the Afghanistan he believes should be the realistic goal of Afghans and the international community: “a basically secure, basically stable, basically democratic country that can look after its own interests.” And he says Afghanistan has the advantage of a “post-9/11, post-Taliban generation” that is better-educated, and that knows the promise of freedom and democratic governance.
“There’s never been a generation like that in Afghanistan,” he says. But he also warns that this new Afghanistan, which lives with the pull of old ways, has to know the world is not turning its back.
“If the Afghans think we’re done, that we’re pulling pitch,” he says, “they’ll revert to old tendencies.”
"Speeding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a mistake, analysts say"
Speeding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a mistake, analysts say
by Sara A. Carter
March 27, 2012
Washington ExaminerThe American mission in Afghanistan, beset by a series of setbacks and tragedies, has reached perhaps the lowest level of support in the U.S., and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since the war started after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll, released Monday, found that a staggering 69 percent of Americans thought the country should not be at war in Afghanistan. Backing for the war plummeted among both Democrats and Republicans in recent months.
And leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan appear equally sick of the war. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, America's erstwhile ally, has been using increasingly incendiary language to describe American troops, calling them "demons" recently as he demanded an accelerated withdrawal after the killing of 17 Afghan civilians which has been charged to a U.S. Army sergeant. Those deaths were just the latest in a cycle of violence that grew worse when Americans at the base in Bagram accidently disposed of several Qurans. Killings of U.S. and NATO troops that had been occurring for years increased after the Quran burnings, with three more NATO troops slain Monday.
American relations have also reached a nadir with Pakistan, with the legislature of that country meeting this week to create a harsh list of demands to be met by the U.S. in order to maintain a military presence there.
But if "the bottom is out of the tub," as Abraham Lincoln said during the darkest days of the American Civil War as defeat and disaster accumulated around his government, there are important reasons to stick to an orderly timetable of withdrawal from Afghanistan, and to pursue the goals of making the country secure and the government stable, according to experts.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who headed the Obama administration's Afghanistan-Pakistan review in 2010, concedes that the growing divide between U.S. and Afghan officials is jeopardizing chances to leave a functioning state and viable economy behind there when America completes its withdrawal.
"The nascent political process with the Taliban has been suspended and the gap between Obama and [President Hamid] Karzai is wider than ever," said Riedel, who is now a senior analyst with the Brookings Institution.
"But the stakes have not changed," he said. "If we give up in Afghanistan, the jihadists will win and gain a huge victory that will resonate around the Islamic world and especially next door in Pakistan."
There are roughly 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Gen. John Allen, told Congress late last week that he does not expect troops to be withdrawn more rapidly than announced targets to get the number down to 68,000 by 2014.
Allen said many of the problems festering between the U.S. and Afghanistan had their root in Pakistan, where insurgents are allowed to operate with impunity.
James Carafano, a senior analyst with the Heritage Foundation said a quick withdrawal from the region would compound the mistake of announcing a withdrawal date in the first place.
"Right now the two greatest impediments to progress are the Taliban and the strategy being followed by the U.S. president. Karzai is a distant third in the our list of problems," Carafano said.
Despite war fatigue, many military and intelligence officials, stress that Afghan security forces are improving -- but are not yet prepared to take complete control from NATO.
"It's a problem for the administration because the situation is so precarious," said a U.S. official who works closely with Afghan officials. "Pakistan U.S. relations are deteriorating. Pakistan seems to have the upper hand and President Obama wants this war over, particularly in an election year."
George Little, spokesman for Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, told The Washington Examiner that Panetta's most recent meeting with Karzai was "productive."
Little said the pair discussed how Afghanistan could eventually be secured entirely by Afghan forces.
"About 50 percent of the country's security is now under Afghan leadership, and we share the goal of increasing that percentage," Little added.
Staying the course and allowing Afghan security forces to grow in strength appears to be the best of the options still available, anaylsts said.
Arturo Munoz, a senior analyst at RAND Corp., said "I don't see a value in a speedy withdrawal. There is a lot of anxiety about the future of the country." Munoz, formerly with the CIA, said the Taliban would call a swift withdrawal "a victory against NATO, and it would give credence to Afghan allies who warned that we would desert them."
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner's national security correspondent.
by Sara A. Carter
March 27, 2012
Washington ExaminerThe American mission in Afghanistan, beset by a series of setbacks and tragedies, has reached perhaps the lowest level of support in the U.S., and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since the war started after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll, released Monday, found that a staggering 69 percent of Americans thought the country should not be at war in Afghanistan. Backing for the war plummeted among both Democrats and Republicans in recent months.
And leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan appear equally sick of the war. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, America's erstwhile ally, has been using increasingly incendiary language to describe American troops, calling them "demons" recently as he demanded an accelerated withdrawal after the killing of 17 Afghan civilians which has been charged to a U.S. Army sergeant. Those deaths were just the latest in a cycle of violence that grew worse when Americans at the base in Bagram accidently disposed of several Qurans. Killings of U.S. and NATO troops that had been occurring for years increased after the Quran burnings, with three more NATO troops slain Monday.
American relations have also reached a nadir with Pakistan, with the legislature of that country meeting this week to create a harsh list of demands to be met by the U.S. in order to maintain a military presence there.
But if "the bottom is out of the tub," as Abraham Lincoln said during the darkest days of the American Civil War as defeat and disaster accumulated around his government, there are important reasons to stick to an orderly timetable of withdrawal from Afghanistan, and to pursue the goals of making the country secure and the government stable, according to experts.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who headed the Obama administration's Afghanistan-Pakistan review in 2010, concedes that the growing divide between U.S. and Afghan officials is jeopardizing chances to leave a functioning state and viable economy behind there when America completes its withdrawal.
"The nascent political process with the Taliban has been suspended and the gap between Obama and [President Hamid] Karzai is wider than ever," said Riedel, who is now a senior analyst with the Brookings Institution.
"But the stakes have not changed," he said. "If we give up in Afghanistan, the jihadists will win and gain a huge victory that will resonate around the Islamic world and especially next door in Pakistan."
There are roughly 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Gen. John Allen, told Congress late last week that he does not expect troops to be withdrawn more rapidly than announced targets to get the number down to 68,000 by 2014.
Allen said many of the problems festering between the U.S. and Afghanistan had their root in Pakistan, where insurgents are allowed to operate with impunity.
James Carafano, a senior analyst with the Heritage Foundation said a quick withdrawal from the region would compound the mistake of announcing a withdrawal date in the first place.
"Right now the two greatest impediments to progress are the Taliban and the strategy being followed by the U.S. president. Karzai is a distant third in the our list of problems," Carafano said.
Despite war fatigue, many military and intelligence officials, stress that Afghan security forces are improving -- but are not yet prepared to take complete control from NATO.
"It's a problem for the administration because the situation is so precarious," said a U.S. official who works closely with Afghan officials. "Pakistan U.S. relations are deteriorating. Pakistan seems to have the upper hand and President Obama wants this war over, particularly in an election year."
George Little, spokesman for Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, told The Washington Examiner that Panetta's most recent meeting with Karzai was "productive."
Little said the pair discussed how Afghanistan could eventually be secured entirely by Afghan forces.
"About 50 percent of the country's security is now under Afghan leadership, and we share the goal of increasing that percentage," Little added.
Staying the course and allowing Afghan security forces to grow in strength appears to be the best of the options still available, anaylsts said.
Arturo Munoz, a senior analyst at RAND Corp., said "I don't see a value in a speedy withdrawal. There is a lot of anxiety about the future of the country." Munoz, formerly with the CIA, said the Taliban would call a swift withdrawal "a victory against NATO, and it would give credence to Afghan allies who warned that we would desert them."
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner's national security correspondent.
Support for war drops sharply among Americans
“[Obama] doesn’t talk about winning in 2014; he talks about leaving in 2014 ..."
Support in U.S. for Afghan War Drops Sharply, Poll Finds
By Elisabeth Bumiller and Allison Kopicki
March 27, 2012
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — After a series of violent episodes and setbacks, support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped sharply among both Republicans and Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The survey found that more than two-thirds of those polled — 69 percent — thought that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan. Just four months ago, 53 percent said that Americans should no longer be fighting in the conflict, more than a decade old. The increased disillusionment was even more pronounced when respondents were asked their impressions of how the war was going. The poll found that 68 percent thought the fighting was going “somewhat badly” or “very badly,” compared with 42 percent who had those impressions in November.
The latest poll was conducted by telephone from March 21 to 25 with 986 adults nationwide. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The Times/CBS News poll was consistent with other surveys this month that showed a drop in support for the war. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 60 percent of respondents said the war in Afghanistan had not been worth the fighting, while 57 percent in a Pew Research Center poll said that the United States should bring home American troops as soon as possible. In a Gallup/USA Today poll, 50 percent of respondents said the United States should speed up the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Negative impressions of the war have grown among Republicans as well as Democrats, according to the Times/CBS News poll. Among Republicans, 60 percent said the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 40 percent in November. Among Democrats, 68 percent said the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 38 percent in November. But the poll found that Republicans were more likely to want to stay in Afghanistan for as long as it would take to stabilize the situation: 3 in 10 said the United States should stay, compared with 2 in 10 independents and 1 in 10 Democrats.
Republicans themselves are divided, however, over when to leave, with a plurality, 40 percent, saying the United States should withdraw earlier than the end of 2014, when under an agreement with the Afghan government all American troops are to be out of the country.
The poll comes as the White House is weighing options for speeding up troop withdrawals and in the wake of bad news from the battlefield, including accusations that a United States Army staff sergeant killed 17 Afghan civilians and violence set off by the burning last month of Korans by American troops.
The poll also follows a number of high-profile killings of American troops by their Afghan partners — a trend that the top American commander in Afghanistan suggested on Monday was likely to continue.
“It is a characteristic of this kind of warfare,” Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He said that in a counterinsurgency conflict like the one in Afghanistan, where American forces are fighting insurgents while training Afghan security forces, “the enemy’s going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operation, but also disrupt the integrity of the indigenous forces.”
American commanders say that the Taliban have in some cases infiltrated Afghan security forces to attack Americans, but that most cases are a result of personal disputes between Afghans and their American trainers.
In follow-up interviews, a number of poll respondents said they were weary after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, and impatient with the slow progress of Afghan security forces.
“I think we should speed up when we’re bringing our troops home,” said Melisa Clemmons, 52, a Republican and a coordinator for a wireless carrier system from Summerville, S.C. “If we’ve been there as many years as we’ve been there, what’s another two years going to get us?” she asked, adding, “These Afghanistan people are turning around and shooting our people. Why is it taking this long for the Afghan troops to be policing themselves?”
Paul Fisher, 53, a Republican from Grapevine, Tex., who works in the pharmaceutical business, said the United States should no longer be involved in the war, although he opposed setting a specific timetable.
“After a while enough is enough, and we need to get out and move on and let Afghanistan stand on its own merits,” he said.
Peter Feaver of Duke University, who has long studied public opinion about war and worked in the administration of President George W. Bush, said that in his view there would be more support for the war if President Obama talked more about it. “He has not expended much political capital in defense of his policy,” Mr. Feaver said.
“He doesn’t talk about winning in 2014; he talks about leaving in 2014. In a sense that protects him from an attack from the left, but I would think it has the pernicious effect of softening political support for the existing policy.”
The drop in support for the war among Republican poll respondents mirrors reassessments of the war among the party’s presidential candidates, traditionally more hawkish than Democrats. Newt Gingrich declared this month that it was time to leave Afghanistan, while Rick Santorum said that one option would be to withdraw even earlier than the Obama administration’s timeline. Mitt Romney has been more equivocal, although he said last summer that it was “time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, as soon as our generals think it’s O.K.”
Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution who is close to American commanders in Afghanistan, said that the opinion polls reflected a lack of awareness of the current policy, which calls for slowly turning over portions of the country to Afghan security forces, like the southern provinces, where American troops have tamped down the violence.
“I honestly believe if more people understood that there is a strategy and intended sequence of events with an end in sight, they would be tolerant,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “The overall image of this war is of U.S. troops mired in quicksand and getting blown up and arbitrarily waiting until 2014 to come home. Of course you’d be against it.”
Among poll respondents, 44 percent said that the United States should withdraw sooner than 2014, while 33 percent said the administration should stick to the current timetable, 17 percent said the United States should stay as long as it would take to stabilize the current situation and 3 percent said the United States should withdraw now.
Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and Allison Kopicki from New York. Marjorie Connelly and Marina Stefan contributed reporting from New York
Support in U.S. for Afghan War Drops Sharply, Poll Finds
By Elisabeth Bumiller and Allison Kopicki
March 27, 2012
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — After a series of violent episodes and setbacks, support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped sharply among both Republicans and Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The survey found that more than two-thirds of those polled — 69 percent — thought that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan. Just four months ago, 53 percent said that Americans should no longer be fighting in the conflict, more than a decade old. The increased disillusionment was even more pronounced when respondents were asked their impressions of how the war was going. The poll found that 68 percent thought the fighting was going “somewhat badly” or “very badly,” compared with 42 percent who had those impressions in November.
The latest poll was conducted by telephone from March 21 to 25 with 986 adults nationwide. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The Times/CBS News poll was consistent with other surveys this month that showed a drop in support for the war. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 60 percent of respondents said the war in Afghanistan had not been worth the fighting, while 57 percent in a Pew Research Center poll said that the United States should bring home American troops as soon as possible. In a Gallup/USA Today poll, 50 percent of respondents said the United States should speed up the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Negative impressions of the war have grown among Republicans as well as Democrats, according to the Times/CBS News poll. Among Republicans, 60 percent said the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 40 percent in November. Among Democrats, 68 percent said the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 38 percent in November. But the poll found that Republicans were more likely to want to stay in Afghanistan for as long as it would take to stabilize the situation: 3 in 10 said the United States should stay, compared with 2 in 10 independents and 1 in 10 Democrats.
Republicans themselves are divided, however, over when to leave, with a plurality, 40 percent, saying the United States should withdraw earlier than the end of 2014, when under an agreement with the Afghan government all American troops are to be out of the country.
The poll comes as the White House is weighing options for speeding up troop withdrawals and in the wake of bad news from the battlefield, including accusations that a United States Army staff sergeant killed 17 Afghan civilians and violence set off by the burning last month of Korans by American troops.
The poll also follows a number of high-profile killings of American troops by their Afghan partners — a trend that the top American commander in Afghanistan suggested on Monday was likely to continue.
“It is a characteristic of this kind of warfare,” Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He said that in a counterinsurgency conflict like the one in Afghanistan, where American forces are fighting insurgents while training Afghan security forces, “the enemy’s going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operation, but also disrupt the integrity of the indigenous forces.”
American commanders say that the Taliban have in some cases infiltrated Afghan security forces to attack Americans, but that most cases are a result of personal disputes between Afghans and their American trainers.
In follow-up interviews, a number of poll respondents said they were weary after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, and impatient with the slow progress of Afghan security forces.
“I think we should speed up when we’re bringing our troops home,” said Melisa Clemmons, 52, a Republican and a coordinator for a wireless carrier system from Summerville, S.C. “If we’ve been there as many years as we’ve been there, what’s another two years going to get us?” she asked, adding, “These Afghanistan people are turning around and shooting our people. Why is it taking this long for the Afghan troops to be policing themselves?”
Paul Fisher, 53, a Republican from Grapevine, Tex., who works in the pharmaceutical business, said the United States should no longer be involved in the war, although he opposed setting a specific timetable.
“After a while enough is enough, and we need to get out and move on and let Afghanistan stand on its own merits,” he said.
Peter Feaver of Duke University, who has long studied public opinion about war and worked in the administration of President George W. Bush, said that in his view there would be more support for the war if President Obama talked more about it. “He has not expended much political capital in defense of his policy,” Mr. Feaver said.
“He doesn’t talk about winning in 2014; he talks about leaving in 2014. In a sense that protects him from an attack from the left, but I would think it has the pernicious effect of softening political support for the existing policy.”
The drop in support for the war among Republican poll respondents mirrors reassessments of the war among the party’s presidential candidates, traditionally more hawkish than Democrats. Newt Gingrich declared this month that it was time to leave Afghanistan, while Rick Santorum said that one option would be to withdraw even earlier than the Obama administration’s timeline. Mitt Romney has been more equivocal, although he said last summer that it was “time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, as soon as our generals think it’s O.K.”
Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution who is close to American commanders in Afghanistan, said that the opinion polls reflected a lack of awareness of the current policy, which calls for slowly turning over portions of the country to Afghan security forces, like the southern provinces, where American troops have tamped down the violence.
“I honestly believe if more people understood that there is a strategy and intended sequence of events with an end in sight, they would be tolerant,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “The overall image of this war is of U.S. troops mired in quicksand and getting blown up and arbitrarily waiting until 2014 to come home. Of course you’d be against it.”
Among poll respondents, 44 percent said that the United States should withdraw sooner than 2014, while 33 percent said the administration should stick to the current timetable, 17 percent said the United States should stay as long as it would take to stabilize the current situation and 3 percent said the United States should withdraw now.
Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and Allison Kopicki from New York. Marjorie Connelly and Marina Stefan contributed reporting from New York
Friday, March 23, 2012
The revised ISAF war plan
See the LWJ website for a helpful map and some interesting observations about the new plan that were posted to the comment section.
ISAF's new plan for AfghanistanBy CJ Radin
March 22, 2012
The Long War Journal
A change in plan
When the "surge" of US troops to Afghanistan was authorized in 2009, an operational plan was created also. Operations would concentrate first on suppressing the Taliban insurgency in South Afghanistan. In 2010 and 2011, the majority of US "surge" troops would be concentrated there. In 2012, after the insurgency was suppressed in South Afghanistan, some US forces would be shifted to East Afghanistan and counterinsurgency operations would then start there while the US forces remaining in South Afghanistan would ensure the Taliban did not return.
In June 2011, however, President Obama announced that the US "surge" troops would be withdrawn earlier than originally planned. Operations had suppressed the insurgency in South Afghanistan in 2010-2011. But the shift of US forces to East Afghanistan in 2012 would not occur. Instead, the troops would be withdrawn. Now, the original plan for operations in East Afghanistan was no longer possible. A new plan would be needed.
In his testimony to Congress yesterday, General Allen gave some insight into a new East Afghanistan plan. Operations would still be conducted there, but they would be on a smaller scale and they would entail taking higher risk for the rest of the country.
A smaller-scale operation in East Afghanistan (RC-East)
East Afghanistan (RC-East) can be divided into two regions. "Northern" RC-East includes the provinces of Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, and Nangarhar. "Southern" RC-East includes the provinces of Khost, Paktika, Paktia, Logar, Wardak, and Ghazni.
Both the northern and southern regions of East Afghanistan have strong Taliban insurgent activity. Both also provide the Taliban with infiltration routes into Afghanistan from their safe havens in Pakistan. The original 2009 plan called for counterinsurgency operations to be conducted in both of these regions. However, the new plan calls for operations only in a portion of "Southern" RC-East, in the provinces of Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, and Paktia (Paktika and Khost are not included). The plan for operations in "Northern" RC-East has been canceled.
A higher risk for the rest of Afghanistan
With the early withdrawal of "surge" troops, fewer remaining US troops overall means that even the smaller operation in "Southern" RC-East will be possible only by taking greater risks in the rest of the country.
With operations canceled in "Northern" RC-East, no additional troops would be sent there. In fact, some US troops would be withdrawn from there and sent to "Southern" RC-East. With troop strength below even the current level, Northern RC-East will be at a higher risk from insurgent infiltration and operations. This region includes the important city of Jalalabad as well as the Khyber Pass, a main transportation route between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kunar and Nuristan provinces are already considered havens for the Taliban and allied terror groups, with several districts already under enemy control.
In addition, General Allen testified that he is considering transferring some troops from South Afghanistan to participate in the "Southern" RC-East operation. Troops in South Afghanistan are currently charged with holding the gains made during counterinsurgency operations in 2010 and 2011. While the decision has not been made, it risks losing some of the gains made in South Afghanistan to insurgent re-infiltration.
A heavier role for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)
Why would General Allen accept this higher-risk plan? Partly, General Allen is relying on the Afghan National Security Forces to perform better than expected. In the areas where US Forces are being drawn down, he will be relying more heavily on the ANSF to prevent insurgent reinfiltration. In his testimony he said: "The growth of the [Afghan National Security Forces] has been dramatic," and noted that the Afghan army is moving to "full partnership with us within this comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign."
General Allen has taken a further measure to support the ANSF in this increasingly difficult mission. In February, the US Army announced that it would deploy an additional 1,800 army and civilian trainers and advisers to support the ANSF.
ISAF's new plan for AfghanistanBy CJ Radin
March 22, 2012
The Long War Journal
A change in plan
When the "surge" of US troops to Afghanistan was authorized in 2009, an operational plan was created also. Operations would concentrate first on suppressing the Taliban insurgency in South Afghanistan. In 2010 and 2011, the majority of US "surge" troops would be concentrated there. In 2012, after the insurgency was suppressed in South Afghanistan, some US forces would be shifted to East Afghanistan and counterinsurgency operations would then start there while the US forces remaining in South Afghanistan would ensure the Taliban did not return.
In June 2011, however, President Obama announced that the US "surge" troops would be withdrawn earlier than originally planned. Operations had suppressed the insurgency in South Afghanistan in 2010-2011. But the shift of US forces to East Afghanistan in 2012 would not occur. Instead, the troops would be withdrawn. Now, the original plan for operations in East Afghanistan was no longer possible. A new plan would be needed.
In his testimony to Congress yesterday, General Allen gave some insight into a new East Afghanistan plan. Operations would still be conducted there, but they would be on a smaller scale and they would entail taking higher risk for the rest of the country.
A smaller-scale operation in East Afghanistan (RC-East)
East Afghanistan (RC-East) can be divided into two regions. "Northern" RC-East includes the provinces of Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, and Nangarhar. "Southern" RC-East includes the provinces of Khost, Paktika, Paktia, Logar, Wardak, and Ghazni.
Both the northern and southern regions of East Afghanistan have strong Taliban insurgent activity. Both also provide the Taliban with infiltration routes into Afghanistan from their safe havens in Pakistan. The original 2009 plan called for counterinsurgency operations to be conducted in both of these regions. However, the new plan calls for operations only in a portion of "Southern" RC-East, in the provinces of Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, and Paktia (Paktika and Khost are not included). The plan for operations in "Northern" RC-East has been canceled.
A higher risk for the rest of Afghanistan
With the early withdrawal of "surge" troops, fewer remaining US troops overall means that even the smaller operation in "Southern" RC-East will be possible only by taking greater risks in the rest of the country.
With operations canceled in "Northern" RC-East, no additional troops would be sent there. In fact, some US troops would be withdrawn from there and sent to "Southern" RC-East. With troop strength below even the current level, Northern RC-East will be at a higher risk from insurgent infiltration and operations. This region includes the important city of Jalalabad as well as the Khyber Pass, a main transportation route between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kunar and Nuristan provinces are already considered havens for the Taliban and allied terror groups, with several districts already under enemy control.
In addition, General Allen testified that he is considering transferring some troops from South Afghanistan to participate in the "Southern" RC-East operation. Troops in South Afghanistan are currently charged with holding the gains made during counterinsurgency operations in 2010 and 2011. While the decision has not been made, it risks losing some of the gains made in South Afghanistan to insurgent re-infiltration.
A heavier role for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)
Why would General Allen accept this higher-risk plan? Partly, General Allen is relying on the Afghan National Security Forces to perform better than expected. In the areas where US Forces are being drawn down, he will be relying more heavily on the ANSF to prevent insurgent reinfiltration. In his testimony he said: "The growth of the [Afghan National Security Forces] has been dramatic," and noted that the Afghan army is moving to "full partnership with us within this comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign."
General Allen has taken a further measure to support the ANSF in this increasingly difficult mission. In February, the US Army announced that it would deploy an additional 1,800 army and civilian trainers and advisers to support the ANSF.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Afghan economy: World Bank recommendations and projections
[T]he current assumption of having more than 300,000 troops would be too expensive. “That would actually crowd out all the developmental expenditure that needs to happen.”
Currently two-thirds of the foreign aid to Afghanistan goes outside of the government [to NGOs].
Rightsize military, World Bank asks Kabul
By Lalit K Jha
March 20, 2012
Pajhwok Afghan News [via e-Ariana]
WASHINGTON - The World Bank (WB) has urged Afghanistan, which is preparing for a sustainable economy after 2014 when foreign troops are expected to withdraw, to prioritise national programmes and rightsize its military.
The bank also urged foreign donors not only to increase their financial assistance but also route it through the government and not NGOs.
The economy of Afghanistan, which post-Taliban has sustained average GDP growth of 9.1 percent, one of the highest in South Asia, is expected to drop by half after the international troops leave the country in 2014, the World Bank estimates.
“The issue right now most important is the transition weather and how economic situation is going to be effected by it,” Isabel Guerrero, the World Bank vice-president for the South Asia Region, told Pajhwok Afghan News in an exclusive interview.
A rapid decline would reduce growth to 5.5 percent until 2018 and around three percent in the long term due to less consumption and investment. This is roughly 50 percent less than the current growth, she noted.
The World Bank, she said, has been recommending a number of measures to ensure that there is a sustained level of development in Afghanistan. With population growth at 2.8 percent, Afghanistan needs strong economic growth to reduce poverty and improve development outcomes.
A growth rate of six percent a year would be required to double Afghanistan’s per capita GDP in about 22 years, Guerrero said. As such, she asked the Afghan minister of finance to prioritise the country’s expenditure, consolidate national programmes and remove plans that are not really crucial.
Guerrero believes Afghanistan needs to 'rightsize' its military. This means having enough security forces so that the private sector can work and there is developmental activity.
But it should not be a drain on the national exchequer. She said the current assumption of having more than 300,000 troops would be too expensive. “That would actually crowd out all the developmental expenditure that needs to happen.”
All aid-giving countries, she said, should think of using some of the savings that they are going to get from the Afghan withdrawal and having less troops to increase development aid.
It is important that foreign aid is routed through the government and not through the non-government sector, as is the case now. Currently two-thirds of the foreign aid to Afghanistan goes outside of the government.
The World Bank official also called for assisting in reconnecting Afghanistan with world markets by helping remove restrictions on trade and transit, and to encourage the building of infrastructure (rail and roads) to realise the potential of mineral wealth.
Guerrero said ... in 2010/11 total public spending, including the “core budget” and “external budget,” was 5.7 billion [and] financed by aid and .9 billion [?] of it “on budget”. This reflects how much Afghanistan is dependent on foreign aid.
According to a recent World Bank study, domestic revenues are projected to increase from 10 percent of GDP to 17.5 percent by 2021/22, which would be driven largely by planned value-added tax and mining revenues.
Currently two-thirds of the foreign aid to Afghanistan goes outside of the government [to NGOs].
Rightsize military, World Bank asks Kabul
By Lalit K Jha
March 20, 2012
Pajhwok Afghan News [via e-Ariana]
WASHINGTON - The World Bank (WB) has urged Afghanistan, which is preparing for a sustainable economy after 2014 when foreign troops are expected to withdraw, to prioritise national programmes and rightsize its military.
The bank also urged foreign donors not only to increase their financial assistance but also route it through the government and not NGOs.
The economy of Afghanistan, which post-Taliban has sustained average GDP growth of 9.1 percent, one of the highest in South Asia, is expected to drop by half after the international troops leave the country in 2014, the World Bank estimates.
“The issue right now most important is the transition weather and how economic situation is going to be effected by it,” Isabel Guerrero, the World Bank vice-president for the South Asia Region, told Pajhwok Afghan News in an exclusive interview.
A rapid decline would reduce growth to 5.5 percent until 2018 and around three percent in the long term due to less consumption and investment. This is roughly 50 percent less than the current growth, she noted.
The World Bank, she said, has been recommending a number of measures to ensure that there is a sustained level of development in Afghanistan. With population growth at 2.8 percent, Afghanistan needs strong economic growth to reduce poverty and improve development outcomes.
A growth rate of six percent a year would be required to double Afghanistan’s per capita GDP in about 22 years, Guerrero said. As such, she asked the Afghan minister of finance to prioritise the country’s expenditure, consolidate national programmes and remove plans that are not really crucial.
Guerrero believes Afghanistan needs to 'rightsize' its military. This means having enough security forces so that the private sector can work and there is developmental activity.
But it should not be a drain on the national exchequer. She said the current assumption of having more than 300,000 troops would be too expensive. “That would actually crowd out all the developmental expenditure that needs to happen.”
All aid-giving countries, she said, should think of using some of the savings that they are going to get from the Afghan withdrawal and having less troops to increase development aid.
It is important that foreign aid is routed through the government and not through the non-government sector, as is the case now. Currently two-thirds of the foreign aid to Afghanistan goes outside of the government.
The World Bank official also called for assisting in reconnecting Afghanistan with world markets by helping remove restrictions on trade and transit, and to encourage the building of infrastructure (rail and roads) to realise the potential of mineral wealth.
Guerrero said ... in 2010/11 total public spending, including the “core budget” and “external budget,” was 5.7 billion [and] financed by aid and .9 billion [?] of it “on budget”. This reflects how much Afghanistan is dependent on foreign aid.
According to a recent World Bank study, domestic revenues are projected to increase from 10 percent of GDP to 17.5 percent by 2021/22, which would be driven largely by planned value-added tax and mining revenues.
Post-2014 stategic pact negotiations: night raids
U.S. Offers Concessions on Afghan Night RaidsBy Adam Entous
March 20, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is offering to cede some control over nighttime missions into Afghan village homes, U.S. officials say, in a bid to ease tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that took on new urgency with the deadly rampage in a Kandahar village last week.
The administration's most significant proposed concession on night raids would subject the operations to advance review by Afghan judges, U.S. military officials said. One option under discussion in U.S.-Afghan talks would require warrants to be issued before operations get the green light.
The so-called night raids by U.S. special-operations forces have long been a source of division between President Barack Obama and Mr. Karzai, and have been a stumbling block in negotiations on the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan after most troops pull out at the end of 2014.
The U.S. military says it considers night raids to be the most effective way of degrading the Taliban's command-and-control infrastructure, with minimal civilian casualties. There were nearly 2,500 such raids in the last year, military officials said.
Mr. Karzai has said repeatedly that the raids must stop, calling them an invasion of Afghan homes and a violation of taboos about Afghan women mingling with unrelated men. They also create a heightened risk of civilian casualties, he says.
U.S. officials say they don't know if the proposed concessions will satisfy Mr. Karzai, especially after the shooting rampage and other incidents in which U.S. service members urinated on Taliban corpses and burned Qurans, the Muslim holy book.
The massacre that killed 16 Afghan villagers on March 11 infuriated Afghans and led Mr. Karzai to call for new restrictions on Western military operations in the countryside.
"The threshold for agreements with Karzai may have gone way up," said a senior U.S. defense official.
Afghan officials in Kabul and the U.S. couldn't be reached for comment on Monday on the negotiations.
Reaching a deal on night raids became the top priority for U.S. negotiators after a March 9 agreement was announced to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility to Afghan control over the next six months.
U.S. officials said the shooting rampage two days later set back the talks on a so-called strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan. The Obama administration wants such a strategic partnership in time for a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in May.
Mr. Obama and top military leaders have in the past rebuffed previous demands by Mr. Karzai to stop night raids. But with the U.S. now drawing down troops, a senior military official said "both sides understand the importance of finding a way ahead here that meets both sets of requirements."
Top commanders have sharply expanded the number of hunt-and-kill teams in recent years in a bid to take militant leaders off the battlefield and make it harder for the Taliban to mount attacks.
A senior U.S. military official said a shift to a warrant-based approach to the raids was meant to address Mr. Karzai's demands for the U.S. to respect Afghan sovereignty.
U.S. officials said they are talking to the Afghans about what type of legal panel could be set up to process these requests in a timely way.
A senior defense official said the options under discussion weren't in direct response to recent events that have soured relations. "Night operations have been of concern to certain Afghan officials, notably President Karzai, for some time," the official said.
Officials compared the proposed changes to the transition in Iraq, where in 2009 the U.S. agreed to seek legal approval before targeted raids.
"The idea is to start to transition not only to an Afghan lead, but to more of a law-enforcement approach," the official said. "It's very much in keeping with the rule of law that any sovereign nation ought to have."
U.S. officials have said they are working to have almost all night raids led by Afghan troops—part of a hand-over of security responsibility to the Afghans, now due to assume the combat lead in 2013. U.S. officials say the shift should be done gradually as Afghan personnel become better trained.
The U.S. wants Afghan commandos, not U.S. forces, to enter Afghan homes and compounds whenever possible, U.S. military and administration officials said.
The U.S. wants to preserve the authority to go after al Qaeda cells, preferably in partnership with Afghan forces but also unilaterally, if the terrorist group tries to make a comeback in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops leave at the end of 2014, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. currently has the right to conduct military operations in Afghanistan whenever it wants. An agreement on night raids would amount to a pledge not to exercise that authority unilaterally.
U.S. officials cautioned that night-raid negotiations were particularly sensitive because of the recent tensions, and that a deal depended largely on whether Mr. Karzai can be persuaded to accept what the U.S. is offering.
American officials said they believed they were close to a deal on night raids before the alleged rampage by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.
The officials said they believed the terms of a proposed agreement on night raids has the support of Afghan military leaders, who have indicated to U.S. counterparts that they agree on the value of such operations in taking out mid- and high-level Taliban leaders and fighters.
Several officials said they remained cautiously optimistic that a binding memorandum of understanding on night raids would be reached with Mr. Karzai within weeks, clearing the way for the sides to complete the strategic partnership agreement.
"Both sides are negotiating in good faith despite this tragedy," a senior defense official said.
The biggest wild card may be Mr. Karzai, who has railed repeatedly in recent days against the U.S.
U.S. officials say Mr. Karzai has sought to use the strategic partnership talks to push through restrictions on what U.S. and NATO forces can do in Afghanistan between now and the end of 2014.
Earlier this month, the U.S. and Afghanistan agreed to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility in the country to Afghan control over the next six months. The U.S. had initially sought more time to make the transition. Officials said the U.S. might have to make similar concessions on night raids.
Administration officials said the proposal to give Afghans greater say over night raids would fit with a broader transition that would see U.S. and NATO troops assume a support and advisory role next year before most of them leave the country at the end of 2014.
Afghan security forces already have the lead in providing security in large swaths of the country.
U.S. military officials dispute Mr. Karzai's contention that the raids kill too many civilians. In the nearly 2,500 nighttime operations conducted in the year ended in February, they said, 10 civilians were killed.
"These [nighttime operations] are enormously successful in terms of rolling up the kinds of people we need to be rolling up. And they work," a senior military official said. "But we want to Afghan-ize these types of operations." —Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
March 20, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is offering to cede some control over nighttime missions into Afghan village homes, U.S. officials say, in a bid to ease tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that took on new urgency with the deadly rampage in a Kandahar village last week.
The administration's most significant proposed concession on night raids would subject the operations to advance review by Afghan judges, U.S. military officials said. One option under discussion in U.S.-Afghan talks would require warrants to be issued before operations get the green light.
The so-called night raids by U.S. special-operations forces have long been a source of division between President Barack Obama and Mr. Karzai, and have been a stumbling block in negotiations on the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan after most troops pull out at the end of 2014.
The U.S. military says it considers night raids to be the most effective way of degrading the Taliban's command-and-control infrastructure, with minimal civilian casualties. There were nearly 2,500 such raids in the last year, military officials said.
Mr. Karzai has said repeatedly that the raids must stop, calling them an invasion of Afghan homes and a violation of taboos about Afghan women mingling with unrelated men. They also create a heightened risk of civilian casualties, he says.
U.S. officials say they don't know if the proposed concessions will satisfy Mr. Karzai, especially after the shooting rampage and other incidents in which U.S. service members urinated on Taliban corpses and burned Qurans, the Muslim holy book.
The massacre that killed 16 Afghan villagers on March 11 infuriated Afghans and led Mr. Karzai to call for new restrictions on Western military operations in the countryside.
"The threshold for agreements with Karzai may have gone way up," said a senior U.S. defense official.
Afghan officials in Kabul and the U.S. couldn't be reached for comment on Monday on the negotiations.
Reaching a deal on night raids became the top priority for U.S. negotiators after a March 9 agreement was announced to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility to Afghan control over the next six months.
U.S. officials said the shooting rampage two days later set back the talks on a so-called strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan. The Obama administration wants such a strategic partnership in time for a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in May.
Mr. Obama and top military leaders have in the past rebuffed previous demands by Mr. Karzai to stop night raids. But with the U.S. now drawing down troops, a senior military official said "both sides understand the importance of finding a way ahead here that meets both sets of requirements."
Top commanders have sharply expanded the number of hunt-and-kill teams in recent years in a bid to take militant leaders off the battlefield and make it harder for the Taliban to mount attacks.
A senior U.S. military official said a shift to a warrant-based approach to the raids was meant to address Mr. Karzai's demands for the U.S. to respect Afghan sovereignty.
U.S. officials said they are talking to the Afghans about what type of legal panel could be set up to process these requests in a timely way.
A senior defense official said the options under discussion weren't in direct response to recent events that have soured relations. "Night operations have been of concern to certain Afghan officials, notably President Karzai, for some time," the official said.
Officials compared the proposed changes to the transition in Iraq, where in 2009 the U.S. agreed to seek legal approval before targeted raids.
"The idea is to start to transition not only to an Afghan lead, but to more of a law-enforcement approach," the official said. "It's very much in keeping with the rule of law that any sovereign nation ought to have."
U.S. officials have said they are working to have almost all night raids led by Afghan troops—part of a hand-over of security responsibility to the Afghans, now due to assume the combat lead in 2013. U.S. officials say the shift should be done gradually as Afghan personnel become better trained.
The U.S. wants Afghan commandos, not U.S. forces, to enter Afghan homes and compounds whenever possible, U.S. military and administration officials said.
The U.S. wants to preserve the authority to go after al Qaeda cells, preferably in partnership with Afghan forces but also unilaterally, if the terrorist group tries to make a comeback in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops leave at the end of 2014, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. currently has the right to conduct military operations in Afghanistan whenever it wants. An agreement on night raids would amount to a pledge not to exercise that authority unilaterally.
U.S. officials cautioned that night-raid negotiations were particularly sensitive because of the recent tensions, and that a deal depended largely on whether Mr. Karzai can be persuaded to accept what the U.S. is offering.
American officials said they believed they were close to a deal on night raids before the alleged rampage by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.
The officials said they believed the terms of a proposed agreement on night raids has the support of Afghan military leaders, who have indicated to U.S. counterparts that they agree on the value of such operations in taking out mid- and high-level Taliban leaders and fighters.
Several officials said they remained cautiously optimistic that a binding memorandum of understanding on night raids would be reached with Mr. Karzai within weeks, clearing the way for the sides to complete the strategic partnership agreement.
"Both sides are negotiating in good faith despite this tragedy," a senior defense official said.
The biggest wild card may be Mr. Karzai, who has railed repeatedly in recent days against the U.S.
U.S. officials say Mr. Karzai has sought to use the strategic partnership talks to push through restrictions on what U.S. and NATO forces can do in Afghanistan between now and the end of 2014.
Earlier this month, the U.S. and Afghanistan agreed to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility in the country to Afghan control over the next six months. The U.S. had initially sought more time to make the transition. Officials said the U.S. might have to make similar concessions on night raids.
Administration officials said the proposal to give Afghans greater say over night raids would fit with a broader transition that would see U.S. and NATO troops assume a support and advisory role next year before most of them leave the country at the end of 2014.
Afghan security forces already have the lead in providing security in large swaths of the country.
U.S. military officials dispute Mr. Karzai's contention that the raids kill too many civilians. In the nearly 2,500 nighttime operations conducted in the year ended in February, they said, 10 civilians were killed.
"These [nighttime operations] are enormously successful in terms of rolling up the kinds of people we need to be rolling up. And they work," a senior military official said. "But we want to Afghan-ize these types of operations." —Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
Gen. Allen testifies on state of the war and US troop deployments in Afghanistan
General Tells Congress That No Sudden Afghan Drawdown Is Planned
By Thom Shanker and John H. Cushman, Jr.
March 20, 2012
(WASHINGTON) The top allied commander in Afghanistan told Congress on Tuesday that he would not be recommending further American troop reductions until late this year, after the departure of the current “surge” forces and the end of the summer fighting season.
That timetable would defer one of the thorniest military decisions facing President Obama — the pace at which the United States removes its forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014— until after the November elections.
Gen. John R. Allen, a Marine four-star who commands the American-led allied forces in Afghanistan, said that he remained optimistic about eventual success but that it was too early to begin shifting forces from battles in the south to the country’s turbulent eastern provinces.
He also acknowledged the deep sensitivities, especially given the current diplomatic crisis with Afghanistan, of handing over complete security control to Afghan forces — including over the commando night raids that American commanders say are critical to the war effort. These are the subject of intense negotiation, he testified.
General Allen said that only after reviewing the results of the next six months of fighting — at the end of which there will be 68,000 American troops remaining there — would he turn his attention to the pace of further reductions in the force.
But he repeatedly said that by the end of next year, Afghan forces would have taken over primary responsibility for operations across the country, allowing NATO’s combat role to be finished by the end of 2014, as currently scheduled.
He spoke during a lengthy hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, where the questions and comments of members communicated a deep exhaustion with overseas conflict after two wars carried out over the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
General Allen’s testimony also came after a troubling, violent period in Afghanistan, beginning with public protests — and a series of murders of American troops by Afghan security forces — after the burning of Islamic holy books by United States military personnel. That was followed by an American soldier’s rampage that left 16 civilians dead, most of them children.
General Allen said that in addition to the criminal inquiry into the massacre, there would be an administrative investigation into the command climate and headquarters organization of the soldier’s unit.
In his opening statement, he did not stray from the line taken by the White House and the Pentagon in recent weeks: that the progress toward what the Obama administration calls an “orderly and responsible” transfer of the fight against insurgents from the American-led alliance to the fledgling Afghan Army is going smoothly and that the schedule should not be altered.
He said he recognized the challenges, and deplored the Koran burnings and the massacre. But he and members of the committee both described those events as isolated, if unfortunate, and there was little discussion of them at the hearing.
Instead, it focused on the schedule and the mechanics of the withdrawal that lies ahead, a subject that is being reviewed by NATO, whose member states are assembling their leadership in May in Chicago, and in talks between the Karzai government and Washington.
On one delicate subject, the night raids carried out by Special Operations forces that have unsettled the Afghans but are credited with weakening the insurgency’s command structure, General Allen said the Afghans would be taking control of them, too, eventually. Twelve Afghan strike teams are being trained for that purpose, he testified.
He said it was important not to rob the surprise raids of “their momentum, which gives them their effectiveness.” And he said it was “very premature” to say what would be the outcome of the talks. Ultimately, he said, as the Afghans take control of operations, the requirements of the Afghan Constitution would need to be respected.
[...]
By Thom Shanker and John H. Cushman, Jr.
March 20, 2012
(WASHINGTON) The top allied commander in Afghanistan told Congress on Tuesday that he would not be recommending further American troop reductions until late this year, after the departure of the current “surge” forces and the end of the summer fighting season.
That timetable would defer one of the thorniest military decisions facing President Obama — the pace at which the United States removes its forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014— until after the November elections.
Gen. John R. Allen, a Marine four-star who commands the American-led allied forces in Afghanistan, said that he remained optimistic about eventual success but that it was too early to begin shifting forces from battles in the south to the country’s turbulent eastern provinces.
He also acknowledged the deep sensitivities, especially given the current diplomatic crisis with Afghanistan, of handing over complete security control to Afghan forces — including over the commando night raids that American commanders say are critical to the war effort. These are the subject of intense negotiation, he testified.
General Allen said that only after reviewing the results of the next six months of fighting — at the end of which there will be 68,000 American troops remaining there — would he turn his attention to the pace of further reductions in the force.
But he repeatedly said that by the end of next year, Afghan forces would have taken over primary responsibility for operations across the country, allowing NATO’s combat role to be finished by the end of 2014, as currently scheduled.
He spoke during a lengthy hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, where the questions and comments of members communicated a deep exhaustion with overseas conflict after two wars carried out over the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
General Allen’s testimony also came after a troubling, violent period in Afghanistan, beginning with public protests — and a series of murders of American troops by Afghan security forces — after the burning of Islamic holy books by United States military personnel. That was followed by an American soldier’s rampage that left 16 civilians dead, most of them children.
General Allen said that in addition to the criminal inquiry into the massacre, there would be an administrative investigation into the command climate and headquarters organization of the soldier’s unit.
In his opening statement, he did not stray from the line taken by the White House and the Pentagon in recent weeks: that the progress toward what the Obama administration calls an “orderly and responsible” transfer of the fight against insurgents from the American-led alliance to the fledgling Afghan Army is going smoothly and that the schedule should not be altered.
He said he recognized the challenges, and deplored the Koran burnings and the massacre. But he and members of the committee both described those events as isolated, if unfortunate, and there was little discussion of them at the hearing.
Instead, it focused on the schedule and the mechanics of the withdrawal that lies ahead, a subject that is being reviewed by NATO, whose member states are assembling their leadership in May in Chicago, and in talks between the Karzai government and Washington.
On one delicate subject, the night raids carried out by Special Operations forces that have unsettled the Afghans but are credited with weakening the insurgency’s command structure, General Allen said the Afghans would be taking control of them, too, eventually. Twelve Afghan strike teams are being trained for that purpose, he testified.
He said it was important not to rob the surprise raids of “their momentum, which gives them their effectiveness.” And he said it was “very premature” to say what would be the outcome of the talks. Ultimately, he said, as the Afghans take control of operations, the requirements of the Afghan Constitution would need to be respected.
[...]
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Anatomy of war plan collapse: Karzai-Obama rift
Gulf Widens Between U.S. and a More Volatile Karzai
By ROD NORDLAND, ALISSA J. RUBIN and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Published: March 17, 2012
The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Americans in Afghanistan are “demons.”
They claim they burned Korans by mistake, but really those were “Satanic acts that will never be forgiven by apologies.”
The massacre of 16 Afghan children, women and men by an American soldier “was not the first incident, indeed it was the 100th, the 200th and 500th incident.”
Such harsh talk may sound as if it comes from the Taliban, but those are all remarks either made personally by the United States’ increasingly hostile ally here, President Hamid Karzai, or issued by his office in recent days and weeks.
The strongest such outburst came Friday. “Let’s pray for God to rescue us from these two demons,” Mr. Karzai said, apparently holding back tears at a meeting with relatives of the massacre victims, and clearly referring to the United States and the Taliban in the same breath. “There are two demons in our country now.”
Ever since the Koran-burning episode on Feb. 20 and its violent aftermath, the relationship between the two governments has lurched from one crisis to another. American officials have scrambled to run damage control, with President Obama expressing a personal apology for the Koran burning, as well as regrets about the massacre, while calling Mr. Karzai twice in the past week.
The White House went to lengths last week to depict Mr. Karzai’s call for Americans to hand over control a year earlier, by 2013, as no change in policy — only to have Mr. Karzai pointedly insist the next day that it was. The Americans fret that Mr. Karzai is making a difficult job almost impossible, with demands they often see as unreasonable; Mr. Karzai worries that the Americans seek to undermine him, and may yet abandon his country and him, once again, to their fate.
The Koran burnings brought these differences into sharp relief, and led to a rupture in trust some view as irreparable. After an American unit at Bagram Air Base inadvertently burned Korans, embassy officials were deeply worried about an investigation conducted by the country’s Ulema Council, its highest religious body.
The council’s pronouncements, however, are closely controlled by Mr. Karzai’s office — they are even issued by the presidential palace — and American officials were assured by senior members on the president’s staff that the council’s report would be tough but not incendiary.
“We were ready to get knocked a bit,” said an American official who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with Afghan officials. “We messed up pretty badly.”
The original draft, in fact, was relatively moderate, American and Afghan officials said. But at the last minute more hard-line elements of Mr. Karzai’s staff weighed in, and the joint statement finally issued by the Ulema Council and the palace used language like “Satanic act” and “unforgivable, wild and inhuman” about the book burnings, and “justifiable emotion” in regard to the violent reaction, which claimed the lives of at least 29 Afghans and 6 Americans.
Western diplomats have often viewed Mr. Karzai’s outbursts as playing to the galleries, meant for consumption by his own people only, not as serious statements of policy. But the galleries also include the public in the United States and its NATO allies, where majorities in nearly every country oppose remaining in Afghanistan, and every new contretemps risks further eroding an already tenuous support.
“I think this is very serious because Mr. Karzai has always had a very ambivalent attitude toward the West and toward the war — he has never really believed violence is the answer,” said Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador to Afghanistan from 2007 through 2009. “He is also very conscious and very resentful that his political survival and even perhaps his personal safety depend on the Americans.”
The current American ambassador, the veteran diplomat Ryan C. Crocker, was brought out of semiretirement by President Obama last July at least in part because he had known Mr. Karzai since the beginning: Mr. Crocker was the first envoy to Afghanistan after the invasion that defeated the Taliban, when Mr. Karzai was appointed interim leader here.
Like many of his predecessors, Mr. Crocker began his latest tour on an optimistic note. “President Karzai has the toughest job in the world, and he has been doing it for the last 10 years,” Mr. Crocker said early on, and has repeated often since. “You have to give him credit.”
[...]
By ROD NORDLAND, ALISSA J. RUBIN and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Published: March 17, 2012
The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Americans in Afghanistan are “demons.”
They claim they burned Korans by mistake, but really those were “Satanic acts that will never be forgiven by apologies.”
The massacre of 16 Afghan children, women and men by an American soldier “was not the first incident, indeed it was the 100th, the 200th and 500th incident.”
Such harsh talk may sound as if it comes from the Taliban, but those are all remarks either made personally by the United States’ increasingly hostile ally here, President Hamid Karzai, or issued by his office in recent days and weeks.
The strongest such outburst came Friday. “Let’s pray for God to rescue us from these two demons,” Mr. Karzai said, apparently holding back tears at a meeting with relatives of the massacre victims, and clearly referring to the United States and the Taliban in the same breath. “There are two demons in our country now.”
Ever since the Koran-burning episode on Feb. 20 and its violent aftermath, the relationship between the two governments has lurched from one crisis to another. American officials have scrambled to run damage control, with President Obama expressing a personal apology for the Koran burning, as well as regrets about the massacre, while calling Mr. Karzai twice in the past week.
The White House went to lengths last week to depict Mr. Karzai’s call for Americans to hand over control a year earlier, by 2013, as no change in policy — only to have Mr. Karzai pointedly insist the next day that it was. The Americans fret that Mr. Karzai is making a difficult job almost impossible, with demands they often see as unreasonable; Mr. Karzai worries that the Americans seek to undermine him, and may yet abandon his country and him, once again, to their fate.
The Koran burnings brought these differences into sharp relief, and led to a rupture in trust some view as irreparable. After an American unit at Bagram Air Base inadvertently burned Korans, embassy officials were deeply worried about an investigation conducted by the country’s Ulema Council, its highest religious body.
The council’s pronouncements, however, are closely controlled by Mr. Karzai’s office — they are even issued by the presidential palace — and American officials were assured by senior members on the president’s staff that the council’s report would be tough but not incendiary.
“We were ready to get knocked a bit,” said an American official who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with Afghan officials. “We messed up pretty badly.”
The original draft, in fact, was relatively moderate, American and Afghan officials said. But at the last minute more hard-line elements of Mr. Karzai’s staff weighed in, and the joint statement finally issued by the Ulema Council and the palace used language like “Satanic act” and “unforgivable, wild and inhuman” about the book burnings, and “justifiable emotion” in regard to the violent reaction, which claimed the lives of at least 29 Afghans and 6 Americans.
Western diplomats have often viewed Mr. Karzai’s outbursts as playing to the galleries, meant for consumption by his own people only, not as serious statements of policy. But the galleries also include the public in the United States and its NATO allies, where majorities in nearly every country oppose remaining in Afghanistan, and every new contretemps risks further eroding an already tenuous support.
“I think this is very serious because Mr. Karzai has always had a very ambivalent attitude toward the West and toward the war — he has never really believed violence is the answer,” said Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador to Afghanistan from 2007 through 2009. “He is also very conscious and very resentful that his political survival and even perhaps his personal safety depend on the Americans.”
The current American ambassador, the veteran diplomat Ryan C. Crocker, was brought out of semiretirement by President Obama last July at least in part because he had known Mr. Karzai since the beginning: Mr. Crocker was the first envoy to Afghanistan after the invasion that defeated the Taliban, when Mr. Karzai was appointed interim leader here.
Like many of his predecessors, Mr. Crocker began his latest tour on an optimistic note. “President Karzai has the toughest job in the world, and he has been doing it for the last 10 years,” Mr. Crocker said early on, and has repeated often since. “You have to give him credit.”
[...]
Friday, March 16, 2012
Camp Bastion attack: WSJ report on new details
Details Emerge About Attack on Marines in Afghanistan
by Julian E. Barnes
Updated March 16, 2012, 1:26 p.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal
An attack at a military runway in Afghanistan where Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was about to arrive was more serious than the Pentagon first acknowledged, based on new disclosures from military officials Friday.
Early Wednesday, an Afghan man drove a stolen pickup truck toward a group of Marines, including the top regional commander, who were awaiting the arrival of Mr. Panetta at the British-run Camp Bastion base in Helmand province.
Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, the head of Regional Command Southwest, and his British deputy, Brig. Stuart Skeates, had to scramble to avoid being hit by the SUV, defense officials said Friday. The officers weren't hurt.
Mr. Panetta arrived just a few minutes later, a defense official said.
The driver crashed into a ditch and was subdued by a military working dog. The assailant, who caught fire in the crash, had a gas can and lighter in the vehicle, but officials weren't sure whether he immolated himself. He suffered third-degree burns over 70% of his body and died Thursday morning, according to military officials.
In a news conference not long after the attack, Gen. Gurganus made no mention of the attack. He instead said there had been no incidents of violence near the base in recent weeks.
"We have had zero incidents," he said. "We have not so much as had a two-man protest at this point in time."
Although the Afghan man worked as an interpreter on base, officials said they don't believe he was deliberately targeting Mr. Panetta or Gen. Gurganus.
"My personal opinion is yes, he had an attempt to harm," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the day-to-day military commander in Afghanistan. "I think, frankly, he tried to hit the people on the ramp."
After the attack, three people, including the assailant's brother and father who also worked as interpreters at the base, were held for questioning, according to a defense official. The official didn't know whether the men were still being held Friday.
Details of the military runway attack on Wednesday have dribbled out slowly. On Friday morning, a defense official provided the first precise account of what happened leading up to the attack.
The assailant had stolen the Toyota Hi-Lux about 30 minutes before Mr. Panetta landed in a C-17 cargo plane, at 11:15 in the morning local time at Camp Bastion, in Helmand province. One British soldier was injured after being struck by the truck. As Mr. Panetta's plane taxied, the truck careened toward the section of the airfield where C-17 was set to park.
Mr. Panetta said on Thursday he didn't believe he was being targeted, and said he believed the attack was aimed at the Marines on the airfield. He said such attacks come with visiting war zones.
"This is a war area, we are going to get these kinds of incidents," he said.
The incident at Camp Bastion and other recent acts of violence overshadowed much of Mr. Panetta's visit and the Pentagon's intended message that overall violence in Afghanistan is down sharply in the first months of 2012.
Adam Entous contributed to this article
by Julian E. Barnes
Updated March 16, 2012, 1:26 p.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal
An attack at a military runway in Afghanistan where Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was about to arrive was more serious than the Pentagon first acknowledged, based on new disclosures from military officials Friday.
Early Wednesday, an Afghan man drove a stolen pickup truck toward a group of Marines, including the top regional commander, who were awaiting the arrival of Mr. Panetta at the British-run Camp Bastion base in Helmand province.
Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, the head of Regional Command Southwest, and his British deputy, Brig. Stuart Skeates, had to scramble to avoid being hit by the SUV, defense officials said Friday. The officers weren't hurt.
Mr. Panetta arrived just a few minutes later, a defense official said.
The driver crashed into a ditch and was subdued by a military working dog. The assailant, who caught fire in the crash, had a gas can and lighter in the vehicle, but officials weren't sure whether he immolated himself. He suffered third-degree burns over 70% of his body and died Thursday morning, according to military officials.
In a news conference not long after the attack, Gen. Gurganus made no mention of the attack. He instead said there had been no incidents of violence near the base in recent weeks.
"We have had zero incidents," he said. "We have not so much as had a two-man protest at this point in time."
Although the Afghan man worked as an interpreter on base, officials said they don't believe he was deliberately targeting Mr. Panetta or Gen. Gurganus.
"My personal opinion is yes, he had an attempt to harm," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the day-to-day military commander in Afghanistan. "I think, frankly, he tried to hit the people on the ramp."
After the attack, three people, including the assailant's brother and father who also worked as interpreters at the base, were held for questioning, according to a defense official. The official didn't know whether the men were still being held Friday.
Details of the military runway attack on Wednesday have dribbled out slowly. On Friday morning, a defense official provided the first precise account of what happened leading up to the attack.
The assailant had stolen the Toyota Hi-Lux about 30 minutes before Mr. Panetta landed in a C-17 cargo plane, at 11:15 in the morning local time at Camp Bastion, in Helmand province. One British soldier was injured after being struck by the truck. As Mr. Panetta's plane taxied, the truck careened toward the section of the airfield where C-17 was set to park.
Mr. Panetta said on Thursday he didn't believe he was being targeted, and said he believed the attack was aimed at the Marines on the airfield. He said such attacks come with visiting war zones.
"This is a war area, we are going to get these kinds of incidents," he said.
The incident at Camp Bastion and other recent acts of violence overshadowed much of Mr. Panetta's visit and the Pentagon's intended message that overall violence in Afghanistan is down sharply in the first months of 2012.
Adam Entous contributed to this article
Attack at Camp Bastion: Panetta was at risk
New Details Show Panetta Was at Risk in Attack
Elisabeth Bumiller
March 16, 2012
The New York Times
WASHINGTON - An Afghan interpreter in a speeding truck tried to run down a top American commander and his British deputy, forcing the two and others to scatter as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s plane taxied toward them at a military base in Afghanistan, defense officials said on Friday.
The latest account of what apparently was a suicide attack shows there was a greater security risk to Mr. Panetta than defense officials originally admitted. American military officials had at first played down the episode, which occurred on Wednesday at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, and they did not immediately disclose important details.
It was not until Friday that defense officials said that Mr. Panetta had already landed when the attack occurred, although they did not say how close his plane came to the speeding truck. But one of the officials acknowledged that if the attack had occurred five minutes later, it was “possible” that Mr. Panetta would have been on the tarmac and in the path of the speeding truck along with the commanders, who had been waiting for him as part of a welcoming party.
The officials, who spoke to reporters on Mr. Panetta’s plane en route from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Washington, asked for anonymity to discuss security matters.
Defense officials said the Afghan interpreter, who apparently set himself on fire, had aimed his truck directly at a group that included Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus of the Marines, the top commander in Helmand, and his British deputy, Brig. Stuart Skeates. A day earlier, military officials described the welcoming party as “a group of Marines,” suggesting they were of lower rank — and omitting that the attacker was heading for one of the most senior American military commanders in Afghanistan.
The attack was the latest in a recent string by Afghans on their American or coalition partners in Afghanistan. Mr. Panetta’s trip occurred only three days after an American soldier was believed to have killed 16 civilians in a village in Kandahar Province in the south, enraging Afghans and driving relations with the American military to a low.
General Gurganus spoke to reporters a little more than an hour after the attack and made no mention of it.
A senior defense official told reporters on Friday that the American military still did not know if the attacker, who died of severe burns early Thursday, had been aware that he was heading toward General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates. The officials said the Afghan, a civilian, worked under contract as an interpreter at Camp Bastion, a British military airfield that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast American Marine base.
The interpreter’s employment suggests that he could have known that the two high-ranking officers were present, or at the very least would have seen that the commotion on the tarmac, which included a sizable waiting motorcade, indicated that someone of importance was arriving.
Defense officials continued to say on Friday that they did not think that the interpreter had been targeting Mr. Panetta, who for security reasons arrived in an unmarked C-17 military transport plane, not his usual Boeing 747 with “United States of America” on the side.
The defense officials said that at least some of Mr. Panetta’s aides on the plane became aware of the episode shortly after landing. The C-17 was quickly diverted to another parking spot at the airport, where General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates then moved to greet Mr. Panetta. By that time, defense officials say, the interpreter had crashed the truck into a ditch and emerged from it in flames. Military personnel found a container of gasoline and a lighter in the truck.
Three other Afghan interpreters at Camp Bastion, including the driver’s brother and father, were detained for questioning. Defense officials could not say on Friday whether they were still being held.
Defense officials said the interpreter had stolen the truck from Camp Leatherneck about 30 minutes before the episode. A British soldier was wounded in the theft.
Elisabeth Bumiller
March 16, 2012
The New York Times
WASHINGTON - An Afghan interpreter in a speeding truck tried to run down a top American commander and his British deputy, forcing the two and others to scatter as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s plane taxied toward them at a military base in Afghanistan, defense officials said on Friday.
The latest account of what apparently was a suicide attack shows there was a greater security risk to Mr. Panetta than defense officials originally admitted. American military officials had at first played down the episode, which occurred on Wednesday at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, and they did not immediately disclose important details.
It was not until Friday that defense officials said that Mr. Panetta had already landed when the attack occurred, although they did not say how close his plane came to the speeding truck. But one of the officials acknowledged that if the attack had occurred five minutes later, it was “possible” that Mr. Panetta would have been on the tarmac and in the path of the speeding truck along with the commanders, who had been waiting for him as part of a welcoming party.
The officials, who spoke to reporters on Mr. Panetta’s plane en route from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Washington, asked for anonymity to discuss security matters.
Defense officials said the Afghan interpreter, who apparently set himself on fire, had aimed his truck directly at a group that included Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus of the Marines, the top commander in Helmand, and his British deputy, Brig. Stuart Skeates. A day earlier, military officials described the welcoming party as “a group of Marines,” suggesting they were of lower rank — and omitting that the attacker was heading for one of the most senior American military commanders in Afghanistan.
The attack was the latest in a recent string by Afghans on their American or coalition partners in Afghanistan. Mr. Panetta’s trip occurred only three days after an American soldier was believed to have killed 16 civilians in a village in Kandahar Province in the south, enraging Afghans and driving relations with the American military to a low.
General Gurganus spoke to reporters a little more than an hour after the attack and made no mention of it.
A senior defense official told reporters on Friday that the American military still did not know if the attacker, who died of severe burns early Thursday, had been aware that he was heading toward General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates. The officials said the Afghan, a civilian, worked under contract as an interpreter at Camp Bastion, a British military airfield that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast American Marine base.
The interpreter’s employment suggests that he could have known that the two high-ranking officers were present, or at the very least would have seen that the commotion on the tarmac, which included a sizable waiting motorcade, indicated that someone of importance was arriving.
Defense officials continued to say on Friday that they did not think that the interpreter had been targeting Mr. Panetta, who for security reasons arrived in an unmarked C-17 military transport plane, not his usual Boeing 747 with “United States of America” on the side.
The defense officials said that at least some of Mr. Panetta’s aides on the plane became aware of the episode shortly after landing. The C-17 was quickly diverted to another parking spot at the airport, where General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates then moved to greet Mr. Panetta. By that time, defense officials say, the interpreter had crashed the truck into a ditch and emerged from it in flames. Military personnel found a container of gasoline and a lighter in the truck.
Three other Afghan interpreters at Camp Bastion, including the driver’s brother and father, were detained for questioning. Defense officials could not say on Friday whether they were still being held.
Defense officials said the interpreter had stolen the truck from Camp Leatherneck about 30 minutes before the episode. A British soldier was wounded in the theft.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Afghan War strategy DOA: Simon Tisdall, Steve Coll, Sandy Gall pile on
Another day in Afghanistan, another setback for the coalition strategy
by Simon Tisdall
March 15, 2012
The Guardian
Obama and Cameron in Washington this week resemble a pair of undertakers discussing the most fitting way to dress a corpse
Another day, another body-blow in Afghanistan. Except Thursday saw not one but two heavy diplomatic punches thumping into the solar plexus of the bruised and battered Nato coalition: a decision by the Taliban to boycott nascent peace talks; and a demand by President Hamid Karzai that US, British and other coalition troops withdraw back to base. How many more hits can the west's Afghan strategy take before it finally gives up the ghost?
The policy's many critics, backed by sceptical public opinion in the US and Britain, say it is already dead and gone. Seen this way, the Afghanistan talk-in featuring Barack Obama and David Cameron in Washington this week resembles a discussion between two undertakers about the most fitting way to dress a corpse. The nub: how to get out fast – without appearing to get out fast.
For the Oval Office record, nothing will shake Obama's 2014 timetable for handover and withdrawal. About 23,000 US troops are due to leave by September, out of a total of 91,000. White House armchair colonels hint that this schedule may be speeded up, in defiance of Pentagon advice. Defying the top brass has great appeal for Democrats in an election year.
But such tinkering aside, the policy's basic planks remain unchanged. Afghanistan was Obama's war of choice. He picked it in preference to Iraq, ordered a General Petraeus-patented surge, went after the bad guys and now, like Bush before him, is preparing to declare a victory, whatever the facts. Yet just how long Obama and Cameron can hold this line is ever more open to question.
Writing in the New Yorker, Steve Coll suggested the policy was disintegrating under the weight of its own wrong assumptions – and would not last until 2014. "The most glaring one is that Nato's surge in 2009 could induce better governance … There are at least two other dubious assumptions. One is that Afghan politics will be cohesive and stable enough in 2014 to bear the pressures of a dramatic reduction of foreign troops. A second is that Afghan security forces will be capable and politically unified enough to take on the burden assigned to them," Coll said.
Coll argues that it is not too late for Obama to recognizse the policy is fatally flawed, and that to persist with it inflexibly is folly. The US and Britain should consider, for example, paying greater attention to the broad political goals enunciated by Afghan leaders, and not just by Karzai.
"These goals include an end to night raids, greater and faster sovereignty over international military operations, and a review of the arming and supervision of militias. Even the announcement of such a direction might arrest the despair and contention that surrounds the American-Afghan partnership, bogged down for months in increasingly implausible negotiations over a strategic partnership accord."
For veteran reporter Sandy Gall, recent events pail into significance compared with what may happen when Nato leaves. "Afghans already feel that electoral considerations are more important to the west than the key question of whether the raw, new Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police will be up to the task of guaranteeing the country's security, especially if Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, continues to back the Taliban," Gall said. Civil war beckoned, he warned.
The Washington Post also said that humility, and a rethink, were badly needed lest Afghan policy definitively crash and burn. "Mr Obama and his aides have done much to damage the relationship between the two countries and public morale on both sides," it said. Obama's people had disrespected President Hamid Karzai and pursued talks with the Taliban over his head, unwisely overruled Pentagon advice, and let politics dictate strategy.
"Afghans, the Taliban and neighbours such as Pakistan can reasonably conclude that the United States, rather than trying to win the war, is racing to implement an exit strategy in which the interests of Afghans and their government are slighted," it said.
In other words, in Afghanistan, it's time to swallow pride and wise up, before it really is too late.
by Simon Tisdall
March 15, 2012
The Guardian
Obama and Cameron in Washington this week resemble a pair of undertakers discussing the most fitting way to dress a corpse
Another day, another body-blow in Afghanistan. Except Thursday saw not one but two heavy diplomatic punches thumping into the solar plexus of the bruised and battered Nato coalition: a decision by the Taliban to boycott nascent peace talks; and a demand by President Hamid Karzai that US, British and other coalition troops withdraw back to base. How many more hits can the west's Afghan strategy take before it finally gives up the ghost?
The policy's many critics, backed by sceptical public opinion in the US and Britain, say it is already dead and gone. Seen this way, the Afghanistan talk-in featuring Barack Obama and David Cameron in Washington this week resembles a discussion between two undertakers about the most fitting way to dress a corpse. The nub: how to get out fast – without appearing to get out fast.
For the Oval Office record, nothing will shake Obama's 2014 timetable for handover and withdrawal. About 23,000 US troops are due to leave by September, out of a total of 91,000. White House armchair colonels hint that this schedule may be speeded up, in defiance of Pentagon advice. Defying the top brass has great appeal for Democrats in an election year.
But such tinkering aside, the policy's basic planks remain unchanged. Afghanistan was Obama's war of choice. He picked it in preference to Iraq, ordered a General Petraeus-patented surge, went after the bad guys and now, like Bush before him, is preparing to declare a victory, whatever the facts. Yet just how long Obama and Cameron can hold this line is ever more open to question.
Writing in the New Yorker, Steve Coll suggested the policy was disintegrating under the weight of its own wrong assumptions – and would not last until 2014. "The most glaring one is that Nato's surge in 2009 could induce better governance … There are at least two other dubious assumptions. One is that Afghan politics will be cohesive and stable enough in 2014 to bear the pressures of a dramatic reduction of foreign troops. A second is that Afghan security forces will be capable and politically unified enough to take on the burden assigned to them," Coll said.
Coll argues that it is not too late for Obama to recognizse the policy is fatally flawed, and that to persist with it inflexibly is folly. The US and Britain should consider, for example, paying greater attention to the broad political goals enunciated by Afghan leaders, and not just by Karzai.
"These goals include an end to night raids, greater and faster sovereignty over international military operations, and a review of the arming and supervision of militias. Even the announcement of such a direction might arrest the despair and contention that surrounds the American-Afghan partnership, bogged down for months in increasingly implausible negotiations over a strategic partnership accord."
For veteran reporter Sandy Gall, recent events pail into significance compared with what may happen when Nato leaves. "Afghans already feel that electoral considerations are more important to the west than the key question of whether the raw, new Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police will be up to the task of guaranteeing the country's security, especially if Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, continues to back the Taliban," Gall said. Civil war beckoned, he warned.
The Washington Post also said that humility, and a rethink, were badly needed lest Afghan policy definitively crash and burn. "Mr Obama and his aides have done much to damage the relationship between the two countries and public morale on both sides," it said. Obama's people had disrespected President Hamid Karzai and pursued talks with the Taliban over his head, unwisely overruled Pentagon advice, and let politics dictate strategy.
"Afghans, the Taliban and neighbours such as Pakistan can reasonably conclude that the United States, rather than trying to win the war, is racing to implement an exit strategy in which the interests of Afghans and their government are slighted," it said.
In other words, in Afghanistan, it's time to swallow pride and wise up, before it really is too late.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
General John Allen
"Allen was the first U.S. general to notice that Sunni tribes there were turning against al-Qaida, and he spent considerable time and resources persuading Sunni leaders to fight alongside the U.S. That cooperation helped push al-Qaida out of the area, an important turning point of the broader war."
Afghan Shootings Put Little-Known Commander Into the Spotlight
By Yochi J. Dreazen
March 13, 2012 [updated March 14]
National Journal
In Kabul, Gen. John Allen has the difficult job of commanding all Western forces in Afghanistan. Here in Washington, he'll face a different kind of challenge: defending the unpopular war to skeptical lawmakers and journalists.
It is a new mission for the Marine general, who hasn't testified before either the House or Senate Armed Services panels since taking his post last year. Allen is also certain to face hard questions about whether troop withdrawals should accelerate because of the war's uncertain progress and the widespread Afghan fury over last weekend's massacre of 16 civilians allegedly by one American soldier.
Serving as the face of an unpopular war would be difficult for any general, but Allen may have a particularly tough time because of his low public profile. In the days since news of the attack in Kandahar province went public, Allen has spoken to CNN.
His predecessor, David Petraeus, was a celebrity general who spent considerable time testifying on the Hill and talking to reporters. During the contentious debate over the Iraq surge, the Bush administration effectively made Petraeus the primary surrogate for discussions with lawmakers. During later visits back home from the war zones, Petraeus regularly spoke at public events.
Allen, by contrast, is widely respected in the Pentagon and White House but has little experience in the public-relations aspects of his job. His testimony next Tuesday will be the first time he has been back on the Hill since his initial confirmation hearing last June (Allen will also testify on Thursday). Military officials say that Allen will hold a Pentagon news conference on Monday, but the commander doesn’t--at least for the moment--have any other public events on his schedule.
“A lot of this is based on relationships, and if a general hasn’t gotten to know individual reporters it makes the media part of the job harder,” said retired Army Col. Steve Boylan, who spent several years serving as Petraeus’s primary spokesman. “The other issue is how well members of Congress know him. By the time Petraeus had been confirmed for the CIA, he’d been to the Hill more than anyone in uniform besides the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Boylan said that Petraeus saw his interactions with lawmakers and the media as important aspects of his job but had only taken on so public a role at the express direction of senior Bush administration officials.
“Let’s face it, when the president singles you out, you have to do what’s asked,” Boylan said. “Whenever President Bush talked about Iraq, Petraeus’s name was in the speech, usually at least a half dozen times.”
Allen is still working to build up relationships with key lawmakers and the press. His visit also comes during an unusually difficult phase of the war. Public support is falling--a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 60 percent of Americans believe the war is no longer worth the costs--and leading GOP presidential contenders have started signaling they believe the war should wind down sooner than planned. The deadly shootings in Kandahar are adding fuel to domestic doubts about the conflict.
Capt. John Kirby, Allen’s spokesman, said that the commander was ready for whatever lawmakers choose to ask him.
“General Allen will be prepared to deal with all their questions about the mission in Afghanistan and how it's going,” he said.
The commander, Kirby said, would highlight his belief that the U.S. and its allies “have wrested the initiative from the Taliban” on the battlefield, and made real progress toward building Afghan security forces capable of gradually supplanting the NATO forces.
Many senior military officials privately express frustration that Allen is so little known despite his key role in turning around the Iraq war.
During the run-up to the surge, Allen commanded all of the Marine forces in Anbar province, then a hotbed of the insurgency. Allen was the first U.S. general to notice that Sunni tribes there were turning against al-Qaida, and he spent considerable time and resources persuading Sunni leaders to fight alongside the U.S. That cooperation helped push al-Qaida out of the area, an important turning point of the broader war.
Other officers were often quietly critical of Allen's boss, Petraeus, who was sometimes accused of being too eager to burnish his own image to continue ascending in the military hierarchy. Allen doesn't face any of those critiques.
Still, Allen's low public profile will almost certainly make his tough PR job even tougher. But he will become better known next week during the Capitol Hill hearings. If they go well, the Obama administration--and the military--will have a powerful new advocate for giving the current Afghan war strategy more time to work. If they don’t, the White House may wish it had a better salesman.
Afghan Shootings Put Little-Known Commander Into the Spotlight
By Yochi J. Dreazen
March 13, 2012 [updated March 14]
National Journal
In Kabul, Gen. John Allen has the difficult job of commanding all Western forces in Afghanistan. Here in Washington, he'll face a different kind of challenge: defending the unpopular war to skeptical lawmakers and journalists.
It is a new mission for the Marine general, who hasn't testified before either the House or Senate Armed Services panels since taking his post last year. Allen is also certain to face hard questions about whether troop withdrawals should accelerate because of the war's uncertain progress and the widespread Afghan fury over last weekend's massacre of 16 civilians allegedly by one American soldier.
Serving as the face of an unpopular war would be difficult for any general, but Allen may have a particularly tough time because of his low public profile. In the days since news of the attack in Kandahar province went public, Allen has spoken to CNN.
His predecessor, David Petraeus, was a celebrity general who spent considerable time testifying on the Hill and talking to reporters. During the contentious debate over the Iraq surge, the Bush administration effectively made Petraeus the primary surrogate for discussions with lawmakers. During later visits back home from the war zones, Petraeus regularly spoke at public events.
Allen, by contrast, is widely respected in the Pentagon and White House but has little experience in the public-relations aspects of his job. His testimony next Tuesday will be the first time he has been back on the Hill since his initial confirmation hearing last June (Allen will also testify on Thursday). Military officials say that Allen will hold a Pentagon news conference on Monday, but the commander doesn’t--at least for the moment--have any other public events on his schedule.
“A lot of this is based on relationships, and if a general hasn’t gotten to know individual reporters it makes the media part of the job harder,” said retired Army Col. Steve Boylan, who spent several years serving as Petraeus’s primary spokesman. “The other issue is how well members of Congress know him. By the time Petraeus had been confirmed for the CIA, he’d been to the Hill more than anyone in uniform besides the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Boylan said that Petraeus saw his interactions with lawmakers and the media as important aspects of his job but had only taken on so public a role at the express direction of senior Bush administration officials.
“Let’s face it, when the president singles you out, you have to do what’s asked,” Boylan said. “Whenever President Bush talked about Iraq, Petraeus’s name was in the speech, usually at least a half dozen times.”
Allen is still working to build up relationships with key lawmakers and the press. His visit also comes during an unusually difficult phase of the war. Public support is falling--a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 60 percent of Americans believe the war is no longer worth the costs--and leading GOP presidential contenders have started signaling they believe the war should wind down sooner than planned. The deadly shootings in Kandahar are adding fuel to domestic doubts about the conflict.
Capt. John Kirby, Allen’s spokesman, said that the commander was ready for whatever lawmakers choose to ask him.
“General Allen will be prepared to deal with all their questions about the mission in Afghanistan and how it's going,” he said.
The commander, Kirby said, would highlight his belief that the U.S. and its allies “have wrested the initiative from the Taliban” on the battlefield, and made real progress toward building Afghan security forces capable of gradually supplanting the NATO forces.
Many senior military officials privately express frustration that Allen is so little known despite his key role in turning around the Iraq war.
During the run-up to the surge, Allen commanded all of the Marine forces in Anbar province, then a hotbed of the insurgency. Allen was the first U.S. general to notice that Sunni tribes there were turning against al-Qaida, and he spent considerable time and resources persuading Sunni leaders to fight alongside the U.S. That cooperation helped push al-Qaida out of the area, an important turning point of the broader war.
Other officers were often quietly critical of Allen's boss, Petraeus, who was sometimes accused of being too eager to burnish his own image to continue ascending in the military hierarchy. Allen doesn't face any of those critiques.
Still, Allen's low public profile will almost certainly make his tough PR job even tougher. But he will become better known next week during the Capitol Hill hearings. If they go well, the Obama administration--and the military--will have a powerful new advocate for giving the current Afghan war strategy more time to work. If they don’t, the White House may wish it had a better salesman.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Britain's part in Afghan War "disaster from the start"
As preface to the following analysis, this quote:
Downing Street was delighted with Barack Obama's ringing endorsement of the Anglo-American special relationship at the White House welcoming ceremony on Wednesday morning.
-- March 15, The Guardian
UK mission in Afghanistan - disaster from the start
March 13, 2012
The Guardian
A top priority for David Cameron and Barack Obama in their talks in Washington on Wednesday must be to convince the rest of the world that they really do want a political and strategic settlement in Afghanistan, and they want one soon. And it must be all-embracing and inclusive.
Senior Pakistani officials are correct when they say they have a special relationship with Afghanistan and no deal can be imposed on Kabul by the US. It is a legitimate argument, not only because of the activities of the Pakistan Taliban or Pakistan's role in exacerbating the insurgency in Afghanistan, but on the consequences of the Durand Line, that artificial boundary drawn up by a British official in the nineteenth century that cut through Pashtun tribal areas.
Serious talks must include all those who have a stake in Afghanistan's future. They should include Russia - increasingly concerned about the supply of heroin and a potential threat posed by Islamic militants in Afghanistan's northern neighbours, notably Uzbekistan - Iran, India, and China.
To demand as a matter of urgency a geopolitical and security settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan is in no way a kneejerk response to the killings of innocent killings by a US soldier of Afghan civilians, nine of them children.
It has been evident for a long time, whatever British and American generals say, that the presence of thousands of their troops in Afghanistan is contributing nothing to the national security of the UK or the US. On the contrary. Meanwhile, within Afghanistan, poverty and hunger abound.
Asked last month how he saw the situation in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delgation in the country replied: "Many Afghans simply say they want to leave their homeland. And they are questioning what has really improved over the past 10 years of conflict. Of course a lot of things have changed. There have been improvements to infrastructure and communications, to name only two areas.".
Stocker added: "But for the vast majority of the population Afghanistan is still a country at war, and they see little hope of the situation getting better anytime soon. In many parts of the country, and across different social groups, from what we can judge, there is a widespread mood of desperation".
The highly respected commentator and author, Ahmed Rashid, wrote this week in the Financial Times: "Increasing numbers of Afghans would agree with what the Taliban have been arguing for almost a decade: that the western presence in Afghanistan is prolonging the war, causing misery and bloodshed."
Britain's military presence in Afghanistan was ill-conceived from the start. With ill-judged enthusiasm Tony Blair in 2001 said Britain would be responsible for eliminating the reliance on the opium poppy harvest.
Among the first serious problems British troops faced when they were deployed in their thousands to Helmand in 2006 was how to allay Afghan fears that their livelihood was about to be taken away from them. "We're not here to destroy the poppy harvest", assured the soldiers, anxious not to provoke further an Afghan population already deeply suspicious of the motives of those who sent in the foreign troops.
Opium poppy and heroin production in Afghanistan is now at record levels.
The troops were deployed to Helmand in 2006 at a time the British army and their commanders were desperate to make amends for the failure to establish law and order in Basra. Far from learning the lessons from Iraq, the mistakes were compounded.
British commanders sent to Afghanistan, like those before them in Iraq, were given no intelligence about what to expect. What intelligence was passed on to them was, if anything, misleading. Nato spokesmen, concerned about doubts expressed even then in parliaments and by public opinion in member states, downplayed the dangers. Ill-conceived though well-meant tactics were made up on the hoof by UK commanders, sometimes forced on them by local Afghan governors and warlords.
British commanders lacked no courage in the field, and their troops lacked no bravery - far from it. But they were reluctant to confront their political masters. To speak truth to power.
Downing Street was delighted with Barack Obama's ringing endorsement of the Anglo-American special relationship at the White House welcoming ceremony on Wednesday morning.
-- March 15, The Guardian
UK mission in Afghanistan - disaster from the start
March 13, 2012
The Guardian
A top priority for David Cameron and Barack Obama in their talks in Washington on Wednesday must be to convince the rest of the world that they really do want a political and strategic settlement in Afghanistan, and they want one soon. And it must be all-embracing and inclusive.
Senior Pakistani officials are correct when they say they have a special relationship with Afghanistan and no deal can be imposed on Kabul by the US. It is a legitimate argument, not only because of the activities of the Pakistan Taliban or Pakistan's role in exacerbating the insurgency in Afghanistan, but on the consequences of the Durand Line, that artificial boundary drawn up by a British official in the nineteenth century that cut through Pashtun tribal areas.
Serious talks must include all those who have a stake in Afghanistan's future. They should include Russia - increasingly concerned about the supply of heroin and a potential threat posed by Islamic militants in Afghanistan's northern neighbours, notably Uzbekistan - Iran, India, and China.
To demand as a matter of urgency a geopolitical and security settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan is in no way a kneejerk response to the killings of innocent killings by a US soldier of Afghan civilians, nine of them children.
It has been evident for a long time, whatever British and American generals say, that the presence of thousands of their troops in Afghanistan is contributing nothing to the national security of the UK or the US. On the contrary. Meanwhile, within Afghanistan, poverty and hunger abound.
Asked last month how he saw the situation in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delgation in the country replied: "Many Afghans simply say they want to leave their homeland. And they are questioning what has really improved over the past 10 years of conflict. Of course a lot of things have changed. There have been improvements to infrastructure and communications, to name only two areas.".
Stocker added: "But for the vast majority of the population Afghanistan is still a country at war, and they see little hope of the situation getting better anytime soon. In many parts of the country, and across different social groups, from what we can judge, there is a widespread mood of desperation".
The highly respected commentator and author, Ahmed Rashid, wrote this week in the Financial Times: "Increasing numbers of Afghans would agree with what the Taliban have been arguing for almost a decade: that the western presence in Afghanistan is prolonging the war, causing misery and bloodshed."
Britain's military presence in Afghanistan was ill-conceived from the start. With ill-judged enthusiasm Tony Blair in 2001 said Britain would be responsible for eliminating the reliance on the opium poppy harvest.
Among the first serious problems British troops faced when they were deployed in their thousands to Helmand in 2006 was how to allay Afghan fears that their livelihood was about to be taken away from them. "We're not here to destroy the poppy harvest", assured the soldiers, anxious not to provoke further an Afghan population already deeply suspicious of the motives of those who sent in the foreign troops.
Opium poppy and heroin production in Afghanistan is now at record levels.
The troops were deployed to Helmand in 2006 at a time the British army and their commanders were desperate to make amends for the failure to establish law and order in Basra. Far from learning the lessons from Iraq, the mistakes were compounded.
British commanders sent to Afghanistan, like those before them in Iraq, were given no intelligence about what to expect. What intelligence was passed on to them was, if anything, misleading. Nato spokesmen, concerned about doubts expressed even then in parliaments and by public opinion in member states, downplayed the dangers. Ill-conceived though well-meant tactics were made up on the hoof by UK commanders, sometimes forced on them by local Afghan governors and warlords.
British commanders lacked no courage in the field, and their troops lacked no bravery - far from it. But they were reluctant to confront their political masters. To speak truth to power.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Afghanistan's National Security Council website hacked
NSC website hackedBy Mir Agha Samimi & Hassib Noori
Pajhwok [via e-Ariana]
March 1, 2012
KABUL - The website of the National Security Council (NSC) has been hacked by a group linked to the Al Qaida terrorist network, a presidential aide confirmed on Thursday.
The website www.nsc.gov.af had its domain in Afghanistan and was registered with the Ministry of Telecommunications. The hackers put the names of Taliban leaders, Osama bin Laden and Aiman-al Zawahiri on the page.
Warning of attacks on westerners and Jews, Marwan Naimi, who introduced himself as the hacker, congratulated all mujahidin” for their successes.
President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, acknowledged that the NSC website had been hacked. However, he gave no further details.
Pajhwok [via e-Ariana]
March 1, 2012
KABUL - The website of the National Security Council (NSC) has been hacked by a group linked to the Al Qaida terrorist network, a presidential aide confirmed on Thursday.
The website www.nsc.gov.af had its domain in Afghanistan and was registered with the Ministry of Telecommunications. The hackers put the names of Taliban leaders, Osama bin Laden and Aiman-al Zawahiri on the page.
Warning of attacks on westerners and Jews, Marwan Naimi, who introduced himself as the hacker, congratulated all mujahidin” for their successes.
President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, acknowledged that the NSC website had been hacked. However, he gave no further details.
Counterfeit money being dumped on Afghanistan
Pakistan's military is the prime suspect in this sophisticated caper.
Afghans Alarmed at Spread of Fake Banknotes
By Abdol Wahed Faramarz
March 3, 2012
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Latest versions are so sophisticated and hard to spot that some Afghans suspect a plot to undermine their monetary system.
A new wave of counterfeit Afghan banknotes has arrived in Afghanistan, undermining confidence in the local currency and disrupting the money market, officials say.
President Hamid Karzai wants to reduce the use of foreign currency, but Afghans interviewed by IWPR say they are reluctant to use afghani banknotes as long as convincing forgeries are around. Economists warn that the volume of extra money in circulation could lead to inflation.
Although counterfeit afghanis are nothing new, the new notes are of higher denominations before, and so well made that even experienced currency traders have trouble spotting them.
Previous forgeries tended to be 50 and 100 afghani notes, worth about one and two US dollars, respectively, but newer counterfeits circulating for the last four months have face values of 500 and 1,000 afghani.
“Although money changers have machines that can identify forged banknotes, they are still sometimes deceived. They therefore have to check each and every banknote, which takes time,” Amin Jan Khosti, head of the Independent Union of Currency Traders at the Shahzada money market in Kabul, told IWPR.
At the Shahzada market, 55-year-old Mohammad Naim was angry after losing 600 dollars by exchanging them for counterfeit afghanis. A friend abroad sent the cash to the impoverished labourer to help him pay off his debts.
But when he tried to repay the money in afghanis, the notes proved to be worthless.
“The lenders wouldn’t take the money, as they said it was forged. Now I can’t find the person who changed the money for me,” he said. “The government should compensate me for my loss. The central bank should exchange these banknotes for me. How am I at fault? Why can’t the government prevent this kind of corruption?”
In a bid to strengthen the afghani, President Karzai issued a decree in late 2011 urging government agencies and officials to avoid using foreign currency. Pakistani rupees and Iranian rials have been in common use since the early 1990s, and the American dollar has been used for almost all major transactions since 2001.
Kabul residents said they were wary of local banknotes due to the proliferation of forgeries.
Maria, who works for a private company, said she no longer wanted to use afghanis.
“When there were no forged afghanis on the market, I used to change my salary [from foreign currency] into afghanis and deposit them in my bank account. Now I want to open a US dollar account because afghanis aren’t reliable,” she said.
Officials say the forgeries are made outside Afghanistan, and some believe neighbouring Pakistan may be deliberately using them to undermine the economy.
Afghan central bank governor Nurullah Delawari were coming in from neighbouring states, although he declined to say which ones.
“These banknotes have been made by a very skilled group using advanced technology. They are trying to bring the banknotes into the Afghan banking system,” he said.
According to Sayed Masud, an economist who lectures at Kabul University, “This has been done to destabilise the economy and decrease people’s trust in the afghani so that it loses value against foreign currencies, particularly the Pakistani currency.”
Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul declined IWPR’s request for a comment on the forgeries.
The head of the central bank’s media office, Emal Hashor, said the institution had written to the interior ministry, provincial governors and police chief, and border officials asking them to take action against the influx.
At the Kabul money market, Khosti said people should use established currency exchanges rather than people in the street.
Experts say people can avoid the forged notes if they are alert to the warning signs. Delawari said the key was the gold-coloured foil strip, which on a bogus note fails to reflect seven colours.
Currency trader Daud said the fakes were also darker in colour and smoother than genuine afghanis, particularly around the central bank seal.
Restaurant owner Mojahed said the reverse of the fake 500 afghani note lacked a thin line, while the fraudulent 1,000 afghani bill is missing a “1,000” in the left-hand corner,
“I have been presented with such banknotes several times,” he said.
Abdol Wahed Faramarz is an IWPR-trained reporter in Kabul.
Afghans Alarmed at Spread of Fake Banknotes
By Abdol Wahed Faramarz
March 3, 2012
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Latest versions are so sophisticated and hard to spot that some Afghans suspect a plot to undermine their monetary system.
A new wave of counterfeit Afghan banknotes has arrived in Afghanistan, undermining confidence in the local currency and disrupting the money market, officials say.
President Hamid Karzai wants to reduce the use of foreign currency, but Afghans interviewed by IWPR say they are reluctant to use afghani banknotes as long as convincing forgeries are around. Economists warn that the volume of extra money in circulation could lead to inflation.
Although counterfeit afghanis are nothing new, the new notes are of higher denominations before, and so well made that even experienced currency traders have trouble spotting them.
Previous forgeries tended to be 50 and 100 afghani notes, worth about one and two US dollars, respectively, but newer counterfeits circulating for the last four months have face values of 500 and 1,000 afghani.
“Although money changers have machines that can identify forged banknotes, they are still sometimes deceived. They therefore have to check each and every banknote, which takes time,” Amin Jan Khosti, head of the Independent Union of Currency Traders at the Shahzada money market in Kabul, told IWPR.
At the Shahzada market, 55-year-old Mohammad Naim was angry after losing 600 dollars by exchanging them for counterfeit afghanis. A friend abroad sent the cash to the impoverished labourer to help him pay off his debts.
But when he tried to repay the money in afghanis, the notes proved to be worthless.
“The lenders wouldn’t take the money, as they said it was forged. Now I can’t find the person who changed the money for me,” he said. “The government should compensate me for my loss. The central bank should exchange these banknotes for me. How am I at fault? Why can’t the government prevent this kind of corruption?”
In a bid to strengthen the afghani, President Karzai issued a decree in late 2011 urging government agencies and officials to avoid using foreign currency. Pakistani rupees and Iranian rials have been in common use since the early 1990s, and the American dollar has been used for almost all major transactions since 2001.
Kabul residents said they were wary of local banknotes due to the proliferation of forgeries.
Maria, who works for a private company, said she no longer wanted to use afghanis.
“When there were no forged afghanis on the market, I used to change my salary [from foreign currency] into afghanis and deposit them in my bank account. Now I want to open a US dollar account because afghanis aren’t reliable,” she said.
Officials say the forgeries are made outside Afghanistan, and some believe neighbouring Pakistan may be deliberately using them to undermine the economy.
Afghan central bank governor Nurullah Delawari were coming in from neighbouring states, although he declined to say which ones.
“These banknotes have been made by a very skilled group using advanced technology. They are trying to bring the banknotes into the Afghan banking system,” he said.
According to Sayed Masud, an economist who lectures at Kabul University, “This has been done to destabilise the economy and decrease people’s trust in the afghani so that it loses value against foreign currencies, particularly the Pakistani currency.”
Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul declined IWPR’s request for a comment on the forgeries.
The head of the central bank’s media office, Emal Hashor, said the institution had written to the interior ministry, provincial governors and police chief, and border officials asking them to take action against the influx.
At the Kabul money market, Khosti said people should use established currency exchanges rather than people in the street.
Experts say people can avoid the forged notes if they are alert to the warning signs. Delawari said the key was the gold-coloured foil strip, which on a bogus note fails to reflect seven colours.
Currency trader Daud said the fakes were also darker in colour and smoother than genuine afghanis, particularly around the central bank seal.
Restaurant owner Mojahed said the reverse of the fake 500 afghani note lacked a thin line, while the fraudulent 1,000 afghani bill is missing a “1,000” in the left-hand corner,
“I have been presented with such banknotes several times,” he said.
Abdol Wahed Faramarz is an IWPR-trained reporter in Kabul.
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