Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
The U.S. Marines have launched a major assault into southern Helmand province in an attempt to wrest control from the Taliban and cut the opium backed funding for the anti-government forces. U.S. Marines exchanged gunfire with militants Tuesday after pouring into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan in the first major American operation in the [...]
Fareed Zakaria argues that John McCain’s foreign policy would be bellicose whereas Barack Obama’s would be conciliatiatory but, as Dave Schuler notes, both are “confrontational” and “interventionist,” just with slightly different priorities. Zakaria points to a recent McCain speech: Not only does it declare war on Russia and China, it places the United States in [...]
Lt. Dennis van Uhm, the son of Holland’s top general, was killed today in Afghanistan. The son of the Dutch defense chief was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and the Taliban claimed they deliberately made the young lieutenant a high-profile target. While the Dutch quickly cast doubt on the Taliban claim, the [...]
Joe Biden is getting plaudits from the Leftosphere for asking Ryan Crocker a really dumb question in yesterday’s hearings. Here’s the video: The transcript: BIDEN: Mr. Ambassador, is Al Qaeda a greater threat to US interests in Iraq, or in the Afghan-Pakistan border region? CROCKER: Mr. Chairman, al Qaeda is a strategic threat to the [...]
The United States is stepping up its attacks on al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, largely without coordination with that country’s government. The United States has escalated its unilateral strikes against al-Qaeda members and fighters operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, partly because of anxieties that Pakistan’s new leaders will insist on scaling back military operations in [...]
At 12:20 Eastern yesterday, I got a CNN Breaking News alert that read, in its entirety, “Britain’s Prince Harry has been serving on the front line in Afghanistan, CNN confirms.” I found it mildly interesting, in that his superiors had previously decided the security risk in sending him to Iraq was too high, but didn’t [...]
Richard Fernandez argues that the rioting by Kosovar Serbs was entirely predictable: The wider impact of the Kosovo crisis is the precedent that it sets for many of the “frozen conflicts” of the world, ranging from Azerbaijan to the Basque region. Remarkably, many Muslim countries have refused to recognize Kosovo. And their reluctance is fueled [...]
A few years back, the horrific videos of Islamic terrorists sawing off the heads of kidnapped hostages on video had the Internet abuzz. Eventually, though, the tactic lost its shock value and it seemed to backfire, causing disgust among the Muslim populations who had otherwise been sympathetic to the Islamist cause. Indeed, there were so [...]
Unless we immediately begin a coordinated effort to refocus NATO’s military and civil strategy in Afghanistan, there will be grave consequences for both the region and the Alliance. That’s the consensus among three reports released yesterday afternoon on Capital Hill receiving wide media coverage today, including this piece fronting WaPo. NATO forces in Afghanistan are [...]
Karl Rove is swimming against the currents of conventional wisdom, warning candidates that running against President Bush is a losing strategy, Joe Curl reports: The president had been pummeled ever since Democrats retook control of Congress in January, but he has pushed ahead with his second-term agenda on issues ranging from opposing federal funding of [...]
In an incredibly hyperbolic piece with the over-the-top headline “The Coup at Home,” NYT columnist Frank Rich draws an equivalence between the coup in Pakistan and the incremental decline of freedom in the United States in the name of counter-terrorism. The gist of the piece: The Pakistan mess, as The New York Times editorial page [...]
Pervez Musharraf has pledged to hold elections in February rather than postponing them for a year as previously announced. Pakistan’s parliamentary elections will he held by mid-February, a month later than planned, the country’s military ruler said Thursday, a day after President Bush urged him to hold the vote on time. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto [...]
A little more than six years into the U.S.-NATO mission in Afghanistan, we have reached a critical juncture, Caroline Wadhams and Lawrence J. Korb argue in a new report, “The Forgotten Front.” The executive summary highlights five steps: 1. Build Afghan Government Capacity The Afghan government is unable to provide rule of law and services [...]
Glenn Reynolds wonders, “WHY IS THE WORLD MORE CONCERNED with Musharraf’s coup than with Hugo Chavez’s emerging dicatatorship? Because enemies of the United States, like Chavez, get a pass.” Tom Maguire responds, reasonably enough, “because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and harbors (willingly or otherwise) the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. What’s that compared [...]
I was away to attend a wedding this weekend and have barely been paying attention to non-football-related news. There’s lots of blogospheric reaction to the mess that’s unfolding in Pakistan, with Pervez Musharraf suspending any pretense that he’s head of a democracy, jailing opposition leaders, lawyers, and journalists by the hundreds and I’m not sure [...]
A request for modifying the stealth bomber to carry bunker buster bombs has sparked new speculation about a Bush administration plan to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Tucked inside the White House’s $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is [...]
An apparent attempt to kill former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has killed at least 126 people. A suicide bombing in a crowd welcoming former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killed at least 126 people Thursday night, shattering her celebratory procession through Pakistan’s biggest city after eight years in exile. Two explosions went off near a [...]
Marine Commandant James Conway worries that the USMC is “becoming a second land Army.” Commandant Gen. James Conway said Monday he is concerned about the Marines Corps’ ability to respond to security flare-ups around the world on short notice because of the demands put on it by the Iraq war. In recent years, the Marine [...]
Greg Djerejian reacts to a Bloomberg report that NATO is having trouble sustaining its mission in Afghanistan by wondering what NATO is doing there to begin with. [N]ot a single one of the original signatories in a million years would have imagined half a century on that [the "armed attack against one or more of [...]
NATO has launched a new offensive in Afghanistan’s Gereshk Valley. NATO forces launched a new military operation Wednesday in Afghanistan’s most violent southern province, while the alliance said it was investigating a shipment of weapons intercepted near the border with Iran this month. About 2,500 Afghan and NATO troops began the operation in the Gereshk [...]
Fred Thompson recently told a stump speech crowd, “You know, you look back over our history, and it doesn’t take you long to realize that our people have shed more blood for other people’s liberty than any other combination of nations in the history of the world.” An unsigned author at the Washington Post has [...]
Misha Glenny has an excellent article regarding the ongoing failed policy of drug prohibition, especially in how it relates to the War in Afghanistan. Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan’s turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. “They were growing right outside the gate of [...]
Nathaniel Fick, a former Marine captain and veteran of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, is now back in Afghanistan teaching counterinsurgency. What he’s teaching is pretty basic COIN doctrine: Welcome to the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare — the kind of war you win by not shooting. The objective in fighting insurgents isn’t to [...]
Pat Lang throws some cold water on the idea that all indicators are moving in the right direction at least on the military front in Iraq, citing reports that the Brits have failed in Basra. In Basra the British have been defeated by the local interests of the several Iraqi Shia factions and their militias. [...]
Barack Obama has announced that he might send troops into Pakistan to fight al Qaeda if elected president. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists even without local permission if warranted — an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his [...]
The story about a man whose Hummer was vandalized by angry environmentalists, which fronted the Metro section of yesterday’s Washington Post, has gotten quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere.
Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, aka Abu Shahid, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq has been captured. The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group’s foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter. Khaled [...]
The fight between Islamist terrorists and an illegitimate regime in Pakistan is coming to a head. The tension long brewing around a radical mosque in Pakistan’s capital burst into street battles Tuesday between security forces and masked militants who challenged the government by mounting a vigilante anti-vice campaign. At least nine people were killed and [...]
The editors of StrategyPage believe the Taliban is on the road to extinction: The Taliban has admitted defeat, in their own unique way. In recent media interviews, Taliban spokesmen announced a shift in emphasis to suicide bombings. The Taliban also admitted that the Americans had infiltrated their high command, which led to the death or [...]
The Hill‘s Roxana Tiron reports that there’s a growing number of congressional Democrats who want to pull American troops out of Afghanistan. When one reads the story, however, it’s pretty clear that this still represents a tiny constituency. When they won control of Congress in November, Democrats pressed their case to withdraw troops from Iraq [...]
Fareed Zakaria notes that there are several hopeful signs in the fight against Islamist terrorism, including the capture of important leaders and several schisms threatening to break apart alliances in Iraq and elsewhere. Moreover, he argues, the jihadists face numerous structural problems. The split between Sunnis and Shiites—which plays a role in Lebanon as well—is [...]
The federal courts have dealt yet another blow to the Bush administration’s policy of denying due process to those it deems “enemy combatants.” Adam Liptak notes that, The ruling was handed down by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., in the case of [...]
The Taliban’s attempt to re-take Afghanistan has been “stalled” by the killing of several of its key leaders, according to the Telegraph‘s Thomas Harding. The Taliban’s much-vaunted spring offensive has stalled apparently due to lack of organisation after dozens of middle-ranking commanders were killed by British troops in the past year, according to military sources. [...]
ABC’s Brian Ross and Christopher Isham report: Thirty-six hours before he was killed by U.S. forces, Taliban Commander Mullah Dadullah said he was training American and British citizens to carry out suicide missions in their home countries, according to a videotape interview to be broadcast on ABC News’ “World News” Monday. “We will be executing [...]
Salon is reporting that elements of al-Qaeda have reorganized and are growing in strength. The news is alarming. U.S. and French intelligence agencies are convinced that terrorist network al-Qaida has reorganized and, what’s more, developed new training camps in both Afghanistan and the remote tribal regions of northern Pakistan. They believe that a new generation [...]
This past week, ABC TV’s Diane Sawyer has been reporting on her travels to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia for the ‘Good Morning America’ program. There’s not a lot there for anyone with any foreign policy savvy, but a few things did pop out. Below is a brief overview of the different segments that aired and [...]
ABC News is currently reporting that the U.S. government has been secretly funneling resources to Jundullah, a militant group affiliated with al-Qaeda, so that the group can carry out strikes against Iran. A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American [...]
Former Taliban defense minister Obaidullah Akhund, reportedly captured the day Vice President Dick Cheney visited Pakistan, is reportedly back on the loose. A Swiss newspaper claimed Sunday that the Taliban’s former defense minister was free two days after his reported capture by Pakistani security forces. The Swiss weekly SonntagsBlick said one of its reporters spoke [...]
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is “considering a plan to curtail the Pentagon’s clandestine spying activities, which were expanded by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, after the 9/11 attacks,” reports National Journal‘s Shane Harris. This could include changing the mission of the Pentagon’s Strategic Support Branch, an intelligence-gathering unit comprising Special Forces, military linguists, and interrogators that [...]
A suicide bomber killed 14 people outside a U.S. air base in Afghanistan, in what appears to have been an attack targeting Vice-President Cheney. A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing at least 14 people and wounding a [...]
After having been relegated to the sidelines for years, Osama bin Laden and especially Ayman al-Zawahri, have regained a central role in directing al Qaeda and have reconstituted a large training operation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde of the NYT. The United States has also identified several new Qaeda [...]
Steven Taylor reflects on a TIME cover story about Haji Bashar Noorzai, the Afghan warlord and pal of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar who willingly flew to the United States to provide valuable intelligence on international terrorism only to find himself rotting in a New York prison for growing poppies in Afghanistan. The administration [...]
Foreign Policy magazine has conducted a survey in conjunction with the liberal Center for American Progress of “more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts—Republicans and Democrats alike,” dubbing it The Terrorism Index. Highlights: 75 percent say the United States is losing the war on terror 81 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous [...]
It appears there will be a “surge” in Afghanistan to go along with the proposed 32,000 additional troops for Iraq. The generals have reportedly asked new SECDEF Bob Gates for “3,500 more American troops as well as about 1,000 more troops from NATO allies” and he is inclined to go along. Still, the move is [...]
Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a top leader in the Taliban, was killed in a U.S. airstrike. A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an airstrike this week close to the border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Saturday. A Taliban spokesman [...]
Michael Gordon and Dexter Filkins report that Hezbollah is training al-Sadr’s Shiite militia. A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr. The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other [...]
We have officially reached a milestone that has been bandied about in the press the last few days. The YahooNews headline gets it as close to right as any: “U.S. involved in Iraq longer than WWII.” The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush’s father [...]
