One fifth of all US and Nato killed this year were killed by someone wearing an Afghan Army or police uniform.

Here is how it was viewed by team Obama  three years ago:

Guess Who Pays the Price for Stupidity.

Two U.S. troops have been shot to death and four more wounded by an Afghan solider who turned his gun on his allies in apparent anger over the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, an Afghan official tells CBS News.

A statement from the International Security Assistance Force - Afghanistan, the international coalition in the country, confirmed that two troops were killed in Eastern Afghanistan on Thursday by "an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform."

ISAF does not typically give the nationality of casualties until family members have been notified, but the CBS News source in the Afghan government said those killed and injured in the attack in the eastern Ningarhar province, along the border with Pakistan, were Americans.

The source also said the shooting appeared to be motivated by the burning of Korans at the sprawling U.S. Bagram air base, north of Kabul, but he did not provide additional details as to what led him to that conclusion.

The suspect apparently joined other protesters already demonstrating against the U.S. at an American military outpost and opened fire with an automatic weapon, according to the Afghan source.

There have been violent anti-U.S. protests for three days across Afghanistan, since the American military apologized for what it said was the accidental "improper disposal" of religious materials, including Muslim holy books, at Bagram. The U.S. is cooperating with the Afghan government to investigate the incident.

The protests Thursday at U.S. and NATO military bases around Afghanistan and in the capital city of Kabul saw renewed clashes between demonstrators and police, with security forces in Kabul reportedly opening fire and wounding several protesters. Five protesters were reportedly killed by police at protests in the north and south of the country.

For U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan, the main concern is what may come after Friday prayers in 24 hours. Friday is the holy day in the Muslim week, and protests are typically much larger as thousands of Muslim men flood out of mosques and converge in cities and towns in protest.

While calls from some Afghan parliamentarians for citizens to try and attack Americans are unhelpful - especially coming from an ally - they pale in significance against the potential damage which the religious leaders could inflict if they urge similar attacks in their Friday prayer speeches.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said Thursday that President Obama had sent a letter to him formally apologizing for the incident at Bagram, and top U.S. commander Gen. John Allen, who ordered the investigation, is making intense efforts to keep that probe as open as possible, but the investigation is not appeasing Afghans, who are tired of apologies.

The Nato-led mission in Afghanistan has now lasted as long as the Soviet army's doomed occupation during the 1980s

Afghan Battle Kills 30

Wall Street Journal

KABUL—Insurgents armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars tried to storm a combat outpost in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, setting off a battle that killed 30 attackers and wounded five coalition soldiers, NATO said.

Assailants struck from all sides in the nighttime attack on the outpost in Paktika province's Bermal district, where nearly all forces with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are from the U.S. military.

The military called in close air-support and aircraft dropped three bombs to help repel the insurgents. According to NATO, the five coalition service members who were wounded in the attack continued fighting.

"Insurgents attacked from all directions," NATO said in a statement. It provided no further details.

The attack took place in an area about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Kabul that borders the Pakistani region of North Waziristan. The area is controlled largely by the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based Taliban faction closely tied to al-Qaida.

The border region has long been a refuge for Islamist extremists from around the world and has been the target of numerous drone strikes against the Taliban, al-Qaida and the forces of the Haqqani network. Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani, a former anti-Soviet commander and his son, are now battling American forces in eastern Afghanistan.

Taliban and Criminals Guarding US Bases in Afghanistan. Pentagon to Set Up "Task Force" to Study.

Inquiry Finds Guards at U.S. Bases Are Tied to Taliban

NY Times

WASHINGTON — Afghan private security forces with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan, exposing United States soldiers to surprise attack and confounding the fight against insurgents, according to a Senate investigation.

The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The United States military has almost no independent information on the Afghans guarding the bases, who are employees of Afghan groups hired as subcontractors by Western firms awarded security contracts by the Pentagon. At one large American airbase in western Afghanistan, military personnel did not even know the names of the leaders of the Afghan groups providing base security, the investigators found. So they used the nicknames that the contractor was using — Mr. White and Mr. Pink from “Reservoir Dogs,” the 1992 gangster movie by Quentin Tarantino. Mr. Pink was later determined to be a “known Taliban” figure, they reported.

In another incident, the United States military bombed a house where it was believed that a Taliban leader was holding a meeting, only to discover later that the house was owned by an Afghan security contractor to the American military, who was meeting with his nephew — the Taliban leader.

Some Afghans hired by EOD Technology, which was awarded a United States Army contract to provide security at a training center for Afghan police officers in Adraskan, near Shindand, were also providing information to Iran, the report asserted. The Senate committee said it received intelligence from the Defense Intelligence Agency about Afghans working for EOD, and that the reporting found that some of them “have been involved in activities at odds with U.S. interests in the region.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee adopted the report by a unanimous vote, although Republican members issued a statement critical of the report for too narrowly focusing on case studies in western Afghanistan.

In response to the Senate report, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a letter saying that the Pentagon recognized the problems and has created new task forces to help overhaul contracting procedures in Afghanistan. "Through the new programs we have implemented, I believe D.O.D. has taken significant steps to benefit our forces on the ground while not providing aid to our enemies," Mr. Gates wrote.

The latest disclosures follow a series of reports, including articles in The New York Times and testimony before a House committee, describing bribes paid by contractors to the Taliban and other warlords to make sure supply convoys for the American military were provided safe passage.

But the Senate report goes further, spelling out the close relations between some contractors and the forces arrayed against the Kabul government and the Americans, and saying that the proliferation of contractors in the country is sometimes fueling the very insurgency that the military is there to combat. It names a few of the contracting companies, and uses one base as a case study, but calls the problems it identified pervasive.

“We must shut off the spigot of U.S. dollars flowing into the pockets of warlords and power brokers who act contrary to our interests,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the committee’s chairman.

“There are truly some outrageous allegations here, and it’s a wake-up call that we have to get a better handle on contractors in Afghanistan and ensure that taxpayer dollars don’t end up in the hands of the enemy,” said Richard Fontaine, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington research group.

There are more than 26,000 private security employees in Afghanistan, and 90 percent of them are working under United States government contracts or subcontracts. Almost all are tied to the militias of local warlords and other powerful Afghan figures outside the control of the American military or the Afghan government, the report found.

The contracting firms are now hiring active-duty members of the Afghan military and security forces, the investigators found, further undermining the efforts by the United States to help Afghanistan build a stronger military that can take on the Taliban insurgency on its own.

The Senate report focuses heavily on security contracting at remote American military bases in western Afghanistan, including the air base in Shindand, near Herat. ArmorGroup, a British-based security firm, was hired by a contractor to the United States Air Force to provide security at Shindand, and then ArmorGroup turned in 2007 to two warlords who had their own militias to do the actual security work. ArmorGroup called them “Mr. White” and “Mr. Pink,” and few Americans knew their real identities, although a leader of an American military team at an adjacent base had recommended Mr. Pink.

“The two warlords and their successors served as manpower providers for ArmorGroup for the next 18 months — a period marked by a series of violent incidents,” the report found.

Fights soon erupted between the forces of Mr. White and Mr. Pink, with Mr. Pink finally killing Mr. White. Mr. Pink then sought refuge with the Taliban. ArmorGroup then turned to Mr. White’s brother, Mr. White II, to run its security force, but also continued to employ Mr. Pink’s men, even though they knew he was now working with the Taliban.

In a raid on Aug., 21, 2008, in Azizabad, Afghanistan, American forces bombed a house where a local Taliban leader, Mullah Sadeq, was suspected of holding a meeting. It was the home of Mr. White II; he was killed in the raid, along with seven other men employed as security guards by ArmorGroup or ArmorGroup Mine Action, an affiliated company with a contract with the United Nations for mine clearing.

The Azizabad raid sparked outrage within Afghanistan. Local villagers, human rights officials and Afghan government officials said that the attack had resulted in more than 90 civilian deaths. The raid had a broad impact on relations between the Afghan government and the American military, and was one of the major incidents that led to a reassessment by President Hamid Karzai of his support for American air raids in the country.

Mr. Karzai visited the village after the attack, and President George W. Bush called Mr. Karzai to express his regret. But the report shows that the bombing raid was entangled in the interplay between contractors and the Taliban, and occurred during a meeting between Mr. White II and the suspect Taliban leader, Mullah Sadeq.

Providing contracts to local militia leaders with ties to the Taliban “gives these warlords an independent funding source,” observed Carl Forsberg, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. “And it gives them a feeling of impunity.”

Afghan Elders are not Happy. Are You?

Our continued presence in Afghanistan is pointless. There is no worthy and likely outcome worth the time, blood and money. That has been obvious for some time.

It is true that we accomplished much more with Viet Nam when we left Viet Nam, but that is not likely with Afghanistan because it is a country dipped in anarchy and pickled in Islamic fervor and old fashion nuttiness.
It is way past time to leave.

We can fight the drug trade where it should be fought and that is on the demand side. U2 flights, drones and on ground intelligence, paid spies, will allow us to prevent the reconstitution of terrorist training camps.

Too bad for Afghanistan. As it should be, it is their problem to resolve.


__HAT Tip: Rufus_________________________


Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, threatens to block Nato offensive

Stephen Grey in Kandahar Times on Line

The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has cast doubt over Nato’s planned summer offensive against the Taliban in the southern province of Kandahar, as more than 10,000 American troops pour in for the fight.

Karzai threatened to delay or even cancel the operation — one of the biggest of the nine-year war — after being confronted in Kandahar by elders who said it would bring strife, not security, to his home province.

Visiting last week to rally support for the offensive, the president was instead overwhelmed by a barrage of complaints about corruption and misrule. As he was heckled at a shura of 1,500 tribal leaders and elders, he appeared to offer them a veto over military action. “Are you happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out?” he asked.

The elders shouted back: “We are not happy.”

“Then until the time you say you are happy, the operation will not happen,” Karzai replied.

General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, who was sitting behind him, looked distinctly apprehensive. The remarks have compounded US anger and bewilderment with Karzai, who has already accused the United States of rigging last year’s presidential elections and even threatened to switch sides to join the Taliban.

For President Barack Obama, the battle to drive the Taliban from their heartland is seen as the main test of his “surge” strategy to send 30,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan. The United States calls Kandahar the “centre of gravity” of the war in Afghanistan.

Senior commanders and diplomats emphasise, however, that success would depend on action by Karzai to eliminate corruption and set up a form of local government.

Nato’s plans envisage political manoeuvres, from a purge of provincial leadership to the creation of precinct councils, to tackle the roots of the Taliban rebellion. The aim is to wrest power from so-called warlords — including the president’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai.

With the Afghan president increasingly regarded as “gone rogue”, hopes of such action were fading. One US official said after the shura that Karzai had proved neither a reliable ally nor popular with his own people: “He can rail against the West all he likes — no one wants him to look like a foreign puppet. The trouble is, his erratic speeches are matched by erratic actions. That’s why this tension is undermining the offensive.”

The latest row began when Karzai decried “huge fraud” in the elections, saying it was “done by the foreigners”. After telephoning Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, the next day to clarify his remarks, Karzai escalated the attack. Witnesses said he told MPs at a private meeting: “If I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban.” His spokesman hastily denied it.

In Kandahar he persisted, deflecting complaints against himself with further criticism of outsiders and saying he had now “rescued myself from foreigners’ orders”.

Few elders at the shura seemed impressed. They pressed for a purge of his officials. “If we speak out and if we tell you the truth of what’s happening here, we will not last the night,” said one elder. “We will be assassinated. Everyone is scared.”

A white-bearded frail man stood up, leaning on a walking stick, and said: “The other day people came with guns and told me to shut my shop and go to my house. I phoned the police. They said, ‘It’s none of our business and we don’t care’.”

Sitting just off the stage at the meeting was the president’s brother. Ahmed Wali Karzai is the head of Kandahar provincial council and is alleged by US officials to profit from drug trafficking and organised crime. The president is reported to have refused US requests to remove him from his post.

On the streets of the city this weekend there appeared to be little or no support for a Nato push in the province. “Look what happened in Marjah,” said one local government official in Kandahar, referring to the last US offensive launched in February in central Helmand province.

“The US controls the place by day but the Taliban control it by night. What is the point? If you help the government, you will be murdered.”

At a popular coffee shop in the city centre, Khaled, a medical student from Kabul, said the influence of the Taliban was creeping back into the area.

“A Nato offensive here will not help,” he added.

“We know what they do. They arrive in great numbers and provide security for two weeks and then they go and the insecurity returns.”

General Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, had warned Clinton about Karzai’s character last year. He said that McChrystal’s proposals for a a troop surge should not be supported unless the president changed.

“President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner,” he wrote in a telegram that was later leaked.

Progress in Afpakistan?

Top Taliban Commander Captured in Secret Raid
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Fox

Feb. 14: A U.S. soldier returns fire as others run for cover during a firefight with insurgents in Marjah, Afghanistan.

The Taliban's top military commander has been captured in Pakistan in a joint operation by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence forces, sources confirmed to Fox News late Monday.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, described as the No. 2 behind Taliban founder and Usama bin Laden associate Mullah Muhammad Omar, has been in Pakistani custody for several days.

Baradar was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in a raid by Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with CIA operatives accompanying the Pakistanis, the New York Times first reported Monday. Pakistan has been leading the interrogation of Baradar, but Americans are also involved, officials said.

Baradar heads the Taliban's military council and was elevated in the body after the 2006 death of military chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Usmani. Baradar is known to coordinate the movement's military operations throughout the south and southwest of Afghanistan. His area of direct responsibility stretches over Kandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.

If confirmed, Baradar's arrest would be a major setback for the Taliban.

He may also have information on the whereabouts of Omar and bin Laden.

Continue

Taliban Bomber of CIA was Jordanian Doctor and a Double Agent

It is being reported that a Jordanian doctor was the suicide bomber double agent for the Taliban. The implications for US security on the war on terror are profound. This should be a wake up call to amateur hour at the White House.

__________________________________

Taliban bomber wrecks CIA’s shadowy war
Christina Lamb in Washington
Times on Line

A middle-aged mother of three and a warm-hearted man called Harold are a long way from the image most Americans have of their top spies in one of the wildest regions of Afghanistan.

But they will be among the seven stars added this week to the 90 on the Memorial Wall at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, after a Taliban suicide bomber killed seven agents and wounded six at a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan. The attack has thrown the CIA’s whole strategy into disarray.

The clandestine nature of the agents’ work means the stars carry no names. The few details that have emerged since Wednesday’s attack have, however, lifted the veil on the most shadowy aspect of the war in Afghanistan.

The bombing took place at Forward Operating Base Chapman in the volatile province of Khost, which borders Pakistan. The area is dominated by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, perhaps Afghanistan’s most deadly warlords.

Although Chapman was officially a camp for civilians involved in reconstruction, it was well-known locally as a CIA base. Over the past couple of years, it focused on gathering information on so-called high-value targets for drone attacks, the unmanned missile planes that have played a growing role in taking out suspected terrorists since President Barack Obama took office. The Haqqanis were their principal target.

“That far forward they were almost certainly from the CIA’s paramilitary rather than analysts,” said one agent.

The head of this intelligence-gathering operation was a mother of three. Although the Chapman base chief has not been named, she was described as a loving mother and an inspiration by a fellow CIA mum.

“She was a dear friend and a touchstone to all of the mums in CTC [counter-terrorism],” she said.

Another CIA official said the base chief had worked on Afghanistan and counter-terrorism for years, dating back to the agency’s so-called Alec Station. That unit was created to monitor Osama Bin Laden five years before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Wednesday’s bomb wiped away decades of experience. Eight years into the war, the agency is still desperately short of personnel who speak the language or are knowledgeable about the region.

“It’s a devastating blow,” said Michael Scheuer, a former agent and head of Alec Station. “We lost an agent with 14 years’ experience in Afghanistan.”

A CIA investigation is under way into how the bomber was able to circumvent security at the base, apparently passing unchecked through an outer perimeter manned by Afghan contractors to enter the gym and detonate his explosive vest. He was said to be wearing Afghan army uniform, but the Afghan Ministry of Defence has denied he was a member of the security forces.

What is clear, given the number of CIA agents at the meeting, is that he was considered an important informant. One agent had flown in specially from Kabul.

The only victim to have been publicly identified was Harold Brown, a 37-year-old father of three, whose mother Barbara thought he worked for the State Department.

“He wanted to make the world a better place,” she said, recounting how he would take clothes outgrown by his two-year-old and give them to Afghan children. She added that he often told her: “My most important things in life are God, my family and my country.”

The attack has left the agency in a quandary, according to Gary Berntsen, a CIA officer for 23 years who led a team to Tora Bora to try to capture Bin Laden.

“The job is gathering human intelligence and for that you have to meet people whether it’s on or off a facility,” he said.

“In the old days when we were running Russian operations, if you had a double agent the worst that happened was he feeds you false information. These days if you have a double agent he detonates in your face.”

The attack raises fresh doubts about coalition plans to turn over security to Afghans to enable western troops to leave.

“This calls into question the whole strategy of using Afghans to guard the perimeter of camps,” said Scheuer.

Both the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban have claimed credit for the attack. The Afghan Taliban said one of their men had infiltrated the Afghan army; the Pakistani group said the bomber was a CIA informer who had switched sides.

One military official said the bombing may have been retaliation for a US push against the Haqqani network. American officials have been putting pressure on Pakistan to send troops to take on the Haqqanis, but the Pakistani military has refused to comply.

The Haqqani network is also thought to have been behind Friday’s bombing at a volleyball match at Shah Hassan Khel in Pakistan in which 96 villagers were killed. The attack is believed to be in revenge for the formation of an anti-Taliban militia. More than 600 people have died in bombings in Pakistan since last October.

_____________________________


Jordan spy among 8 killed at CIA Afghan base: report
WASHINGTON : Monday, 04 January 2010 11:58
Malaysian Mirror

WASHINGTON - The eighth man killed in a suicide bomb attack on a secret CIA base in Afghanistan last week was a captain in the Jordanian spy service known as the General Intelligence Department (GID), The Washington Post reported.


The official Jordanian news agency Petra identified the man as Ali bin Zeid, saying that he was killed "on Wednesday evening as a martyr while performing the sacred duty of the Jordanian forces in Afghanistan."

The agency provided no further details about his death in the bombing that also claimed the lives of seven US intelligence operatives. But the US newspaper said it provided a "rare window into a partnership" between the US and Jordanian intelligence service, in which Jordan is playing an increasingly vital role in the fight against Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Jordanians are particularly prized for their skill in both interrogating captives and cultivating informants, owing to an unrivaled "expertise with radicalized militant groups and Shia/Sunni culture," Jamie Smith, a former CIA officer who worked in the border region in the years immediately after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, is quoted by The Post as saying.

"They know the bad guy's ... culture, his associates, and more about the network to which he belongs," he said.


Current and former US intelligence officials said the special relationship with Jordan dates back at least three decades and has recently progressed to the point that the CIA liaison officer in Amman enjoys full, unescorted access to GID headquarters, according to the report.

The close ties helped disrupt several known terrorist plots, including the thwarted 2000 "millennium" conspiracy to attack tourists at hotels and other sites, the paper pointed out.

Jordanians also provided US officials with communications intercepts in summer 2001 that warned of terrorist plans to carry out a major attack on the United States, The Post said.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Jordan agreed to create a bilateral operations center with the CIA and helped in interrogations of non-Jordanian suspects captured by the US Central Intelligence Agency and transferred to Jordan in now-famous "rendition" flights, the paper noted.

--AFP

Obama's Afghanistan Mission Impossible

Obama says 30,000 troops are vital to our national interest. That national interest has an announced shelf life. It expires in 18 months.

The plan calls for a rapid building of an Afghanistan army and police force. This stated goal has not happened over the last 8 years, but we are asked to believe it will happen over the next 18 months.

Assume you are a new recruit, prepared to grab a paycheck as a future Afghan soldier. Your local Taliban representative shows up and reminds you that in 18 months the Americans are leaving and that the Taliban is not.

I don't care if they get 250,000 in uniforms, the week the Americans pull out, that army will evaporate.

Obama also says that he can reduce corruption which is in the Afghani DNA. That is absurd. Anyone on the take today, will grab as much as he can as fast as he can and do so before the money train leaves town. Corruption will go up not down.

Obama knows he has painted himself into a corner. This is not about winning. It is all about leaving. It is the political cover for a politician that has been trying to be all things to all people.

The future of Afghanistan will not be much different from its past. The best we can hope for is that will be the distant past not the recent past.

Is there a sensible alternative? Probably not. Obama didn't create this mess. George Bush tested the limits of US military power and Obama is charged with facing the consequences of the overreach.

Lyndon Baines Obama to run Afghanistan?

US bid to bypass Karzai's Afghan government upsets allies
Appointment of 'high representative' in Kabul forms part of Barack Obama's latest strategy

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
guardian.co.uk,

Monday 30 November 2009 17.58 GMT

The US is seeking to extend its control over the day-to-day running of Afghanistan with the appointment of an international "high representative" in Kabul in an attempt to bypass Hamid Karzai's much-criticised government.

The initiative, being pushed by the US special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, has caused a split between Washington and its closest Nato allies, who believe it could further undermine the Afghan president's legitimacy and the United Nations' role in the country.

The proposal is part of a political strategy designed to accompany the dispatch of US reinforcements due to be announced tomorrow night by Barack Obama and ultimately provide an exit strategy.

The political package under discussion includes the installation of an Afghan chief executive at Karzai's shoulder in the government and closer international cooperation by a permanent "contact group".

The measures are designed to overcome the weakness and corruption of the Afghan government that the troops will be fighting to support. The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, has said the government would fall within weeks if Nato pulled out now.

Some European officials, including senior British figures, argue that the gains in efficiency achieved by appointing an international envoy with vice regal authority would be outweighed by the Kabul government's further loss of legitimacy.

"This has to be Afghan-owned or it's not going to work," a top European official said. European states and Canada have a more positive view of the UN's performance than the US.

Following his re-election in fraud-ridden elections, Karzai has promised his Nato backers he will a take a tougher line against corruption and has made greater efforts in supplying recruits for the Afghan army and police force whose training and deployment represent the core the exit strategy to be outlined by Obama.

Western governments are sceptical about whether Karzai will be able to reform as quickly as they would like to enable them to withdraw troops, and they are beginning to discuss contingency plans to improve Afghan governance by bypassing the president if necessary.

Foreign ministers from the countries with most troops involved – the US, Britain, Germany, France and Canada – discussed the next steps at Karzai's inauguration on 19 November.

Holbrooke pursued the issue in visits to Berlin and Paris, and in conversations with British officials last month. Final decisions will be taken at the London conference on Afghanistan in late January.

Holbrooke in particular believes the UN mission is ineffectual and soft on the Afghan government's alarming record of corruption. He is pushing for the appointment of a high representative for the international community, modelled in part on the post of the same name in Bosnia.

He has met resistance from European states and Canada that have more faith in the Norwegian head of the UN mission, Kai Eide.

"This is something Holbrooke is pushing but it's not set in stone yet," said a senior defence official from a country with troops on the ground. "It is a way of getting around Kai Eide but some of the allies have a lot of time for Kai. He has achieved a lot. He persuaded Karzai to hire some of his better ministers. He just goes about it in a quiet way."

A European diplomat portrayed the initiative as an attempt to restore US influence at the heart of the international co-ordination effort after Peter Galbraith, an American diplomat, was forced out of his job as the second-in-command at the UN mission in September because of a personality and policy clash with Eide.

"In a way, the idea of this is to replace Galbraith, " the diplomat said.

The Holbrooke-led campaign against Eide drew support last week from the International Crisis Group. In a report on Afghanistan's "crisis of governance" on Wednesday, the independent organisation recommended Eide's resignation "since he has lost the confidence of many on his staff and the necessary trust of many parts of the Afghan polity".

Eide's term ends in March and some European countries have suggested he could be replaced then by a "super-envoy", perhaps combining the UN post with a Nato civilian role.

The former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown was initially approached for such a job in early 2008 but his appointment was blocked by Karzai. The appointment of Ashdown or another leading British figure in such a powerful role is still seen in Kabul and some capitals as problematic because of Britain's imperial history.

Another name mentioned as a possible international high representative is the current US ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, but he has recently clashed with the American Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, over whether Washington should send more troops.

Nick Horne, a former UN official in Afghanistan who resigned at the end of October over the failure to achieve political reform, said the new international representative "would have to be someone of international stature".

"He has to have the full support of the international community, and the confidence of the Afghan people", Horne said.

So Afghanistan needs an army: Let's subcontract the Taliban.

Outsourcing baby. We are the outsourcing champions of the world. Let's get it on, so to speak. Outsource the war and be home for the next Hajj, for Christ's sake if not our own.

Flip the Taliban. We have thousand of unemployed real estate flippers in Florida and Nevada alone. Whats' the difference really, between a condominium and mohammadinium? It's all semantics and politics. Flip the Taliban.

Well the math is compelling. Let's go big and hire 500,000 of them. The average wage in Afghanistan is $400 a year, so going big time we pay them a princely $1000 per year. We should be able to outfit one soldier for $2000. Therefore for probably no more than twelve seconds interest on our national debt, $1.5 Billion, we have a battle hardened army, proven winners all, 500,000 believers.

Seems to me when we had about 1200 special oops riding around on mules we outsourced the entire country. We got a little carried away at Tora Bora and probably got stiffed by going light on supervision but these things happen.

_________________________


Afghans Offer Jobs to Taliban Rank and File if They Defect
New York Times

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — The American-backed campaign to persuade legions of Taliban gunmen to stop fighting got under way here recently, in an ornate palace filled with Afghan tribal leaders and one very large former warlord leading the way.


Majid/Getty Images
Guns laid down by former Taliban fighters lined a wall at a reconciliation meeting. Many were promised paid work.

“O.K., I want you guys to go out there and persuade the Taliban to sit down and talk,” Gul Agha Shirzai, the governor of Jalalabad, told a group of 25 tribal leaders from four eastern provinces. In a previous incarnation, Mr. Shirzai was the American-picked governor of Kandahar Province after the Taliban fell in 2001.

“Do whatever you have to do,” the rotund Mr. Shirzai told the assembled elders. “I’ll back you up.”

After about two hours of talking, Mr. Shirzai and the tribal elders rose, left for their respective provinces and promised to start turning the enemy.

The meeting is part of a battlefield push to lure local fighters and commanders away from the Taliban by offering them jobs in development projects that Afghan tribal leaders help select, paid by the American military and the Afghan government.

By enlisting the tribal leaders to help choose the development projects, the Americans also hope to help strengthen both the Afghan government and the Pashtun tribal networks.

These efforts are focusing on rank-and-file Taliban; while there are some efforts under way to negotiate with the leaders of the main insurgent groups, neither American nor Afghan officials have much faith that those talks will succeed soon.

Afghanistan has a long history of fighters switching sides — sometimes more than once. Still, efforts so far to persuade large numbers of Taliban fighters to give up have been less than a complete success. To date, about 9,000 insurgents have turned in their weapons and agreed to abide by the Afghan Constitution, said Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, the chief administrator for the Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Kabul.

But in an impoverished country ruined by 30 years of war, tribal leaders said that many more insurgents would happily put down their guns if there was something more worthwhile to do.

“Most of the Taliban in my area are young men who need jobs,” said Hajji Fazul Rahim, a leader of the Abdulrahimzai tribe, which spans three eastern provinces. “We just need to make them busy. If we give them work, we can weaken the Taliban.”

In the Jalalabad program, tribal elders would reach out to Taliban commanders to press them to change sides. The commanders and their fighters then would be offered jobs created by local development programs.

The Pashtuns, who form the core of the Taliban, make up a largely tribal society, with families connected to one another by kinship and led by groups of elders. Over the years, the Pashtun tribes have been substantially weakened, with elders singled out by three groups: Taliban fighters, the rebels who fought the former Soviet Union and the soldiers of the former Soviet Union itself. The decimation of the tribes has left Afghan society largely atomized.

Afghan and American officials hope that the plan to make peace with groups of Taliban fighters will complement an American-led effort to set up anti-Taliban militias in many parts of the country: the Pashtun tribes will help fight the Taliban, and they will make deals with the Taliban. And, by so doing, Afghan tribal society can be reinvigorated.

“We’re trying to put pressure on the leaders, and at the same time peel away their young fighters,” said an American military official in Kabul involved in the reconciliation effort. “This is not about handing bags of money to an insurgent.”

The Afghan reconciliation plan is intended to duplicate the Awakening movement in Iraq, where Sunni tribal leaders, many of them insurgents, agreed to stop fighting and in many cases were paid to do so. The Awakening contributed to the remarkable decline in violence in Iraq.

In the autumn of 2001, during the opening phase of the American-led war in Afghanistan, dozens of warlords fighting for the Taliban agreed to defect to the American-backed rebels. As in Iraq, the defectors were often enticed by cash, sometimes handed out by American Army Special Forces officers.

At a ceremony earlier this month in Kabul, about 70 insurgents laid down their guns before the commissioners and agreed to accept the Afghan Constitution. Some of the men had fought for the Taliban, some for Hezb-i-Islami, another insurgent group. The fighters’ motives ranged from disillusion to exhaustion.

“How long should we fight the government? How many more years?” said Molawi Fazullah, a Taliban lieutenant who surrendered with nine others. “Our leaders misled us, and we destroyed our country.”

Like many fighters who gave up at the ceremony, he shrouded his face with a scarf and sunglasses, for fear of being identified by his erstwhile comrades.

The Americans say they have no plans to give cash to local Taliban commanders. They say they would rather give them jobs.

In a defense appropriations bill recently approved by Congress, lawmakers set aside $1.3 billion for a program known by its acronym, CERP, a discretionary fund for American officers. Ordinarily, CERP money is used for development projects, but the language in the bill says officers can use the money to support the “reintegration into Afghan society” of those who have given up fighting.

For all the efforts under way to entice Taliban fighters to change sides, there will always be the old-fashioned approach: deadly force. American commanders also want to squeeze them; such is the rationale behind Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for tens of thousands of additional American troops.

Indeed, sometimes force alone does the trick. On Oct. 9, American Special Forces soldiers killed Ghulam Yahia, an insurgent commander believed responsible for, among other things, sending several suicide bombers into the western city of Herat. Mr. Yahia had changed sides himself in the past: earlier in the decade, he was Herat’s mayor.

When the Americans killed Mr. Yahia, in a mountain village called Bedak, 120 of his fighters defected to the Afghan government. Others went into hiding. Abdul Wahab, a former lieutenant of Mr. Yahia’s who led the defectors, said that the Afghan government had so far done nothing to protect them or offer them jobs. But he said he was glad he had made the jump anyway.

“We are tired of war,” he said. “We don’t want it anymore.”

Sangar Rahimi and Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Cheney Hammers Obama on National Security

Eight years after fleeing Tora Bora, the Taliban-al‑Qaeda network threatens all of Pakistan

Not too horrible to contemplate, just horrible enough to finish the job. Our less enlightened fathers and grandfathers understood how to take care of business.

At the time the US had trapped the Taliban-al‑Qaeda network at Tora Bora, the Bush Administartion and the Pentagon lost their nerve to do what had to be done to destroy the enemy that brought 911 to American streets, American airspace, the American military headquarters, the US Capitol and the US financial nerve system.

Instead of using the might of US military power, the Bush Administration enexplicably lost its nerve and allowed the the snake to escape into Waziristan.

The Pentagon went into all possible girations to develop non-nuclear block busting bombs that in the end were ineffective to do the job. American forces in sufficient numbers were not committed to trapping AQ and the Taliban. Tactical nuclear weapons, designed, developed and paid for were left on the shelf because of__________________ (fill in the blank).

Now we shall see the outcome of the folly of losing one's nerve when challenged in a fight to the death.

__________________

The battle for 'terror central' in Pakistan

As Pakistan pours troops and armour into the al-Qaeda safe haven of South Waziristan, Dean Nelson assesses the timing and significance of the onslaught, and asks whether it could spark a national conflagration.

By Dean Nelson Telegraph
Published: 7:02AM BST 19 Oct 2009

Pity poor Pakistan. As I write, 30,000 of its troops are advancing ever further into one of its fiercely independent tribal areas to kill thousands of their own countrymen many of them don't want to fight, in a war they cannot win.
But their preferences or prospects no longer matter: the Taliban and their allies in the al-Qaeda and Kashmiri jihadist groups throughout the country have taken the war to them. A battle is being waged over the future of Pakistan in which the government and army's only hope is to take the fight into the heart of "Terror Central" – the remote South Waziristan tribal agency which has served as al-Qaeda's safest haven since its leadership was driven out of Afghanistan in 2001.

Although Pakistan's military chiefs have been talking about an "imminent" assault since last June, all the evidence has pointed to deep reluctance to launch a massive ground offensive they believe will provoke an overwhelming backlash with suicide bombings and fidayeen commando attacks throughout the country.

It was the Taliban's new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, who finally forced a decision upon the army when his militants launched a daring commando raid into the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi. Just 10 fidayeen gunmen shot their way into the GHQ, seized 42 hostages, and killed 14 soldiers and civilians in a 22-hour siege.
It was the centrepiece of a 12-day rampage in which Hakimullah demonstrated he could reach into the heart of Pakistan's military establishment and kill at will. More than 160 people died in the attacks, which targeted elite police commando training colleges in Lahore and a police intelligence HQ in Peshawar.

The real humiliation for the army is that most of these raids were shown, shot by shot, on live television news channels. Hakimullah's challenge could not have been more forceful or more public. His question: who calls the shots in Pakistan?

The answer has traditionally been a no-brainer – the army, with occasional incursions by elected governments. But Hakimullah's onslaught questioned the military's invincibility, and its chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, could not let that challenge pass.

The wonder for many is that it has taken the army so long. Almost eight years have passed since
al-Qaeda's leadership fled the American bombardment of their caves at Tora Bora, over the border in Afghanistan, and took refuge in the Taliban's South Waziristan safe haven.

Since then, Arab fighters and commanders from Libya and Egypt, thousands of militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Chechens, Kashmiris and Punjabis have flocked to the "emirate", as it's known, to train as suicide bombers, wage jihad against British and American troops in Afghanistan or plot international terror attacks. Gordon Brown has said that 75 per cent of all terrorist plots against Britain originate in Pakistan, and most intelligence agencies believe the heart of al-Qaeda's terrorist infrastructure is in South Waziristan.

To put it bluntly, part of Pakistan has been Islamised as a result of American action. And now it is Pakistan that has to deal with the consequences, fighting battles in the way America wants against some of its own people.

Pakistan's reluctance to attack the Taliban in its heartland has, until now, been based on a fear of a backlash in its biggest city, Karachi, where several million ethnic Pashtuns from its tribal areas live, and important strategic considerations: Pakistan raised the Taliban to bring order and an end to civil war between mujahideen factions in Afghanistan. Its political leaders were nurtured by Benazir Bhutto's interior minister, General Naseerullah Babar, and many of its commanders were trained by Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency.

After the American-led offensive in Afghanistan that ousted Mullah Omar's Taliban regime in 2001, several key Taliban figures were protected by the Pakistan army, which still regards them as "strategic assets". Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin, are among them. They continue to organise attacks on Nato forces from Waziristan, unmolested or challenged by the Pakistan army.

The Pakistan military believes the Americans and the British will withdraw from Afghanistan – and when they do they will need old Taliban friends such as Haqqani once again to minimise the influence of its Indian enemy in its Afghan back yard. It is for this reason too that Islamabad has turned a blind eye to the presence of Mullah Omar's Quetta Shura, the ruling council that co-ordinates the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan from a hideout close to the Balochistan state capital.

These leaders are what the Pakistan military have in mind when they talk of "good" and "bad" Taliban – those who pose a threat to Pakistan and those who do not. Those who pose a mortal threat to British and American troops over the border can still be "good Taliban" in Pakistan.

It is the rise of the "very bad Taliban", such as Hakimullah Mehsud's pro-al-Qaeda Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – which threatens both Pakistan and Nato forces in Afghanistan – that has brought the largest deployment of Pakistani troops to the tribal areas since the British Indian Army arrived in the Thirties to crush the Faqir of Ipi's jihad against the Raj.

The current Taliban jihadis use the same attacks and pose the same dangers – ambushing convoys by overpowering hilltop pickets as they withdraw – with one significant difference.

While the Faqir wanted an end to unjust British rule and autonomy for Waziristan, he could not export his jihad beyond Waziristan's arid mountain landscape. When Hakimullah's 10 commandos stormed the Pakistan army HQ on October 10, five of them were "Punjabi Taliban" – members of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, one of a number of militant, army-trained lashkars originally formed to fight Indian rule in Kashmir but now part of the bad Taliban-al‑Qaeda network.

The group's spokesman, Azam Tariq, said their attack was just the start and would be repeated in Singh and Balochistan provinces.

Just before the Taliban offensive, their new commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, gave an interview at a secret location in Waziristan where he was "determined to take severe revenge for Baitullah Mehsud's killing and the continued drone strikes... both America and Pakistan will have to face the consequences. We have respect for al-Qaeda and the jihadist organisations – we are with them."

Baitullah Mehsud, his predecessor, who was killed by an American Predator drone attack in South Waziristan in August, had fought Pakistan's army to an effective surrender in 2006 when the government was forced to sign a "peace deal" that undermined pro-government tribal areas and pulled the rug from under the feet of local army and Frontier Constabulary officers who suddenly realised they were on their own.

A series of such "peace deals" were signed under former military ruler General Musharraf, who argued that Pakistan had lost hundreds of troops in Waziristan, but that these agreements could be a model for ending the broader conflict.

According to American officials, what actually happened is that al-Qaeda used the "peace" as a breathing space in which to rebuild its global terror infrastructure and replenish its coffers. Under one deal, $500,000 was paid to the Taliban, which was in turn given to al-Qaeda as a loan repayment.

From 2006 until 2008, much of Waziristan was effectively ceded to the Taliban as a territory beyond the Pakistan government's writ. American officials, including then vice-president Dick Cheney, were so incensed that they visited General Musharraf to show him evidence of how al-Qaeda was rebuilding its terror HQ under the protection of his "peace deals".

The American response was to increase its Predator drone attacks on "high-value" Taliban and
al-Qaeda targets. But although they killed a number of militant commanders, they undermined the Pakistan government even further among its tribesmen close to the border: either it had collaborated or it was too weak to resist the breach of its sovereignty.

The problem for Pakistan is that until now it has not been able to enforce its writ or defend its sovereignty in Waziristan, which has become an "ungoverned space" of the sort that the new post-9/11 world can no longer abide.

Pity poor Pakistan, because the space it gave the Taliban in Waziristan allowed them to train new groups in their own image from all over the country.

Today, there are little bits of Waziristan throughout Pakistan's major towns and cities, and the army's belated ground offensive will light the touchpaper for a national explosion.

U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division protecting Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan.

What will he get from a Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released today by Hartco Strategies:

Geologist James R. Yeager, who served as Advisor to the Ministry of Mines in Afghanistan, will host a news conference to release his report on the Aynak Copper Tender in Logar Province which shows how a flawed process, the bias of a government official and lack of concern by U.S. officials led to China gaining a huge foothold in exploiting Afghanistan's natural resources.

DATE: Thursday, October 15, 2009

TIME: 1 p.m.

PLACE: National Press Club, Lisagor Room

The Honorable Don Ritter, Sc. D., served as Writing Project Coordinator for
this report. Ritter has 30 years experience with Afghanistan as a former
congressman, businessman and investor.


Contributors include former Minister of Mines Sediq and Mr. Ed Smith, former
head of the Afghanistan Recovery Group at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.


James Yeager has over 30 years experience in geology and mining and has managed exploration and development projects in the United States, Mexico,Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia and Australia.


SOURCE Hartco Strategies

Larry Hart of Hartco Strategies, +1-202-262-1168 (mobile)

_____________________________________



RESOURCE-HUNGRY CHINA HEADS TO AFGHANISTAN
Posted: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 2:01 PM

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Early on a recent morning we were driving to a shoot when an astonishing sight loomed up ahead of us. NBC News cameraman Steve O’Neill exclaimed, "It’s the Great Wall of China!"

The "wall" snaking before us, easily several miles long, was made of Hesco sandbags and circled a camp for Chinese workers. Though not permitted to enter the site, we could see rows and rows of neat white buildings with blue trim; the temporary structures looked exactly like the migrant workers’ housing at construction sites all across China.

Size apart, it was all somewhat unremarkable, except for the fact that we were in eastern Afghanistan.

"It's the Great Wall of China," said NBC cameraman Steve O'Neill when we saw the Hesco sandbags surrounding the Chinese workers camp at the Aynak copper mine in Afghanistan.

The Chinese workers – several hundred technicians – are part of a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment in Afghanistan’s largest-ever infrastructure project, the Aynak copper mine.

Discovered in 1974 but virtually dormant since the start of the Soviet War in 1979, the Aynak mine is believed to contain the world’s second-largest untapped copper deposits and could propel Afghanistan into the ranks of the world’s top 15 copper producers.

After wooing Afghan officials from as early as 2001, a Chinese mainland joint venture finally won the rights in 2007 to develop the site over 30 years. So far, it has sunk more than $4 billion into the project.

The joint venture – between majority partner China Metallurgical Group Corp. and Jiangxi Copper Corp. – expects production to begin by the end of 2011 with an initial annual output of 180,000 tons of copper that will eventually grow to 320,000 tons. China will have rights to half that output, which it needs to fuel its own massive economic growth.

But the mine is just outside Kabul, in Logar Province, where there has been heightened insurgent activity. Some 1,500 Afghan police are stationed on site with a new police barracks in the works. And although they say they are not attached to the project, the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division occasionally sends units to patrol the area. China – of course, not being a member of NATO – has no troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

It’s this set-up that’s feeding a percolating debate about China’s role in Afghanistan.

Making the world safe for Chinese commerce. OOrah!

Obama and his Generals

What is a future military victory in Afghanistan? Some say we can create a national army that will fight the Taliban. We cannot teach the Afghans how to fight, they have had plenty of practice doing that. When not fighting invaders they fight amongst themselves.

They could remind us how to win. We used to know how to do that and we did it.

Will we speak war in a language the Afghans understand and kill offending tribes, destroy their villages and fields? Will we destroy their will to resist as we did to the Japanese and the Germans? Will be cower them and offer the sword or the cross and convert them to Western ideologies? No, but that is how military victory is achieved.

That is not the way of modern mankind.

Will we reduce their love for opium? It has increased since the Taliban were ousted and is now traded throughout all of Europe. Opium is used to addict young woman from Eastern Europe who are then traded through Muslim Albania and Kosovo to Western Europe and the Middle East.

Will nineteen year old marines, the products of American high schools spread a superior culture to the Afghans?

Will woman be liberated? Will there be religious tolerance? Will tribalism be dispersed and political grievance be debated and settled by constitution and law? Will a father accept his daughter's decision to marry a Christian? Will a town or village accept a Christian church?

What will change in Afghanistan that will be worthy of thousands more Americans killed and tens of thousands more maimed?

Is Afghanistan worthy of the expenditure of US treasure borrowed from the Chinese, while the Chinese increase economic and military strength on a global scale. Consider the absurdity of the US wasting assets in Afghanistan trying to convert Islamic fundamentalist minds and hearts while China buys up resources in the Americas by the billions using US dollars.

Our cost of running Government in the US is in deficit $1.4 trillion this year alone. How does that improve US security?

The stated and restated US strategy is eliminating al-Qaeda, but al-Qaeda has substantially dispersed and relocated. Islamic extremism has metastasized into the Internet and has established itself in Muslim communities in every country including the US.

Multiple invasions of Afghanistan have not reduced Islamic fervor; It has made it worse both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The same occurred in Iraq. Saddam Hussein restrained religious extremism in Iraq, but today extremism is more prevalent than it has ever been.

There is simply no evidence that the US and its allies are going to make an Islamic country less militant by occupying it.

We do not have the courage to identify the real problem which is embedded in the religion itself. Islam is the problem. We choose not to accept that. Our leaders specifically deny it.

The Bush Administration convinced itself and much of the country that it would rescue Iraq from itself. Freedom bells would ring and all would be well . A new dawn would arrive and change would sweep through the Islamic world. Bush sincerely believed in a reverse domino effect. A new age of enlightenment would overwhelm the thinking and culture of 1.5 billion Muslims.

How has that worked out?

Obama does not believe for one minute in the mission in Afghanistan. He is not going to give his generals what they say they need. That could be a good thing because politicians and generals are often wrong in both concert and in opposition.

However, Obama does not have the courage to take a stand of conviction, act upon it, and see it through regardless of the political consequences. We will plod on.

McChrystal got 25 Minutes with Obama.

President is AWOL as our commander
Last Updated: 4:54 AM, October 4, 2009
Posted: 3:42 AM, October 4, 2009
NY Post
Michael Goodwin

IF you still doubt Presi dent Obama is trying to do too many things and is giving short shrift to the most important ones, consider this pathetic scene at the Copenhagen airport. It was Friday, and the president went to Denmark to make his pitch for the Chicago Olympics.

Before Air Force One took off for home, Obama met with Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Our commander in Afghanistan was summoned from London and got 25 minutes of face time with the commander-in-chief.

That's it -- 25 minutes on the plane for the man Obama picked to lead 68,000 troops and rescue a war he calls one of "necessity." Compare that to the 14 hours or so Obama wasted flying and speaking about the Olympics, and you get a snapshot of a president off course.

Not incidentally, that was the same day the unemployment rate climbed to 9.8 percent, the highest since 1983, as employers shed 283,000 more jobs in September.

Barack Obama, phone home.

Yes, the president is trying to do too much. Even worse, much of what he is trying to do are things most Americans don't want.

Exhibit A is the massive health-care overhaul that has become an Obama obsession in his race with history. In the two months before he addressed Congress on Sept. 9, he held six health-care town halls and an evening news conference.

He then hit the road for more town halls and interviews, culminating in his TV blitz on Sept. 20, when he appeared on five Sunday shows, followed by an appearance on David Letterman. (No sex jokes, please.)

All Obama has to show for this reckless push is declining support, with the latest Rasmussen Reports survey finding a record low of only 41 percent backing him. Several polls show that up to 70 percent of the public doesn't believe his claims about the cost and impact on the deficit and their insurance.

As I have written, Obama is squandering the mandate and public trust he worked so hard to win. But the waste doesn't just hurt him.

His Hamlet-like second-guessing of the Afghanistan strategy he backed in March runs the risk of undermining the men and women in harm's way. In fact, the McChrystal meeting was hastily scheduled after the general conceded he had talked with the president only once in the last 70 days.

It's one thing to take your time to get the strategy right. It's quite another not to spend sufficient time on the problem.

Obama needs to align his priorities with the nation's.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nightmarish Iranian-nuke issue, the painful recession -- these are the core challenges facing America. It's time the president gives them the attention they deserve.

40,000 more for Afghanistan. Not so fast says Obama.

Obama: No quick decision on troops to Afghan
By BEN FELLER (AP) –

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Wednesday there will be no quick decision on whether to send more U.S. troops into the widening war in Afghanistan, saying "my determination is to get this right."

The president's comments came one day after Adm. Mike Mullen, his top military adviser as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, endorsed an increase in U.S. forces as likely necessary to battle a deepening insurgency. The U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, also has delivered a grim assessment of the war and is expected to follow up soon with a request for thousands of additional troops.

"I'm going to take a very deliberate process in making those decisions," said Obama, taking questions from reporters as he sat in the Oval Office with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "And so I just want to be absolutely clear, because there's been a lot of discussion in the press about this: There is no immediate decision pending on resources."

Even as Obama spoke about a methodical war review, administration officials were briefing key lawmakers on McChrystal's review and on White House proposals for 46 benchmarks to gauge progress in the stalemated Afghan war and the hunt for al-Qaida in neighboring Pakistan.

The Obama administration's road map to winning the war in Afghanistan relies heavily on clearing terrorists from Pakistan, according to the list of benchmarks provided to lawmakers.

Stabilizing Pakistan always has been a key part of the administration's strategy for South Asia. But its prominence in the long-awaited benchmarks for the Afghan war signals a longer regional view than just gauging whether the conflict is being won.

"It's going to be much broader than just combat troops," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after being briefed by top Obama administration officials Wednesday about an on-the-ground assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. "Everybody ought to realize that this is a much broader issue than that."

His Republican counterpart on the committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., emerged from the briefing calling the proposed Obama benchmarks "a start," but not specific enough.

The president has already ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, increasing the U.S. commitment there to 68,000 by year's end. Yet violence in Afghanistan has soared to record levels. More U.S. troops — 51 — died in Afghanistan in August than in any other month since the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001.

Obama faces mounting pressure on what do next, both from an anxious and war-weary public and from members of his own Democratic Party. He said he will follow his plan of doing a broad assessment of military, diplomatic, civilian and development efforts in Afghanistan before deciding his next steps.

"One of the things that I'm absolutely clear about is you have to get the strategy right and then make determinations about resources," Obama said.

"You don't make determinations about resources — certainly you don't make determinations about sending your men and women into battle — without having absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be."
Asked if U.S. and NATO forces were winning the war in Afghanistan, Obama did not answer directly.
But he said it is clear that "we have lacked as clear of a strategy and a mission as is necessary in order to meet our overriding objectives."

Obama described that as disrupting the al-Qaida terrorist network so that it cannot launch attacks on the U.S. and its allies. "That has not yet occurred," he said.

Harper said the Taliban in Afghanistan do not constitute a viable alternative government and in that sense, progress had been made. But he said "we are concerned about the strength of the insurgency" and in Afghanistan's ability to take long-sought, day-to-day responsibility for its own security.
Canada, which has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, plans to withdraw them in 2011.

Gen McChrystal inspects site of the air strike in Afghanistan

US general sees strike aftermath
BBC

The head of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan has visited the area where a Nato air strike destroyed two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban militants.

Gen Stanley McChrystal's visit came amid reports that civilians were among scores of people killed in the attack.
Gen McChrystal has made avoiding civilian deaths a priority in the alliance's Afghan campaign.

A Nato investigative team also visited the site of the attack, on the Kunduz River in northern Afghanistan.
The 10-member team led by US Rear Admiral Gregory J Smith had earlier visited a hospital in Kunduz city where some of the injured are being treated.

Rear Adm Smith said there were few confirmed details so far.

"Two fuel trucks were stuck in the sandbar. There were two bombs dropped on that area," he said.
"The sense was that there were insurgents there, but we need to discover what really happened.
"We are really trying to learn and understand, and we are listening."

In a statement broadcast on Afghan television, Gen McChrystal promised a full investigation into the air strike.
"As commander of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), nothing is more important than the safety and protection of the Afghan people," he said.

"I take this possible loss of life or injury to innocent Afghans very seriously."
Meanwhile, the German defence minister has defended his country's troops for ordering the air strike.
Franz Josef Jung said the two fuel tankers had posed a considerable danger to the German soldiers stationed close by.

The Nato attack occurred about 7km (four miles) south-west of Kunduz city before dawn on Friday.
German forces had reported the two tankers hijacked by the Taliban while they were being driven from Tajikistan to supply Nato forces in Kabul.

Witnesses said one of the tankers had become stuck in a river and militants asked villagers to extract fuel to make it lighter.

At that point, the air strike occurred.

The death toll is still not confirmed, with reports varying from 56 to 90.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the attack had been a "big mistake".

The West should "work with the Afghan people, not bomb them", Mr Kouchner said in Stockholm, where European Union foreign ministers have concluded two days of talks focusing on their strategy in Afghanistan.

The ministers agreed there was "a need to reinforce our political, civilian and economic efforts in Afghanistan", Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said.

They also said there should be a greater focus fighting corruption and the production of opium.

Had we gone into Afghanistan in 2001, knocked over the Taliban, driven out al-Qaida and departed, we would not be facing what we do today.

Losing Afghanistan
Posted on August 13th, 2009 by Patrick J. Buchanan
American Conservative

“Taliban Are Winning: U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising Casualties.” Thus ran the startling headline on the front-page of The Wall Street Journal.

The lead paragraph ran thus:

“The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency’s spiritual home.”

Source for the story: Gen. Stanley McChrystal himself.

The general’s spokesman in Kabul was swift to separate him from that headline and lead. They “go too far,” he said: The general does not believe the Taliban are winning or “gaining the upper hand.”

Nevertheless, in the eighth year of America’s war, the newly arrived field commander concedes that U.S. casualties, now at record levels, will continue to be high or go higher, and that our primary mission is no longer to run down and kill Taliban but to defend the Afghan population.

What went wrong?

Though U.S. force levels are higher than ever, the U.S. military situation is worse than ever. Though President Karzai is expected to win re-election, he is regarded as the ineffectual head of a corrupt regime. Though we have trained an Afghan army and police force of 220,000, twice that number are now needed. The Taliban are operating not only in the east, but in the north and west, and are taking control of the capital of the south, Kandahar.

NATO’s response to Obama’s request for more troops has been pathetic.

Europeans want to draw down the troops already sent. And Western opinion has soured on the war.

A poll commissioned by The Independent found 52 percent of Britons wanting to pull out and 58 percent believing the war is “unwinnable.”

U.S. polls, too, have turned upside down.

A CBS-New York Times survey in late July found 33 percent saying the war was going well and 57 percent saying it was going badly or very badly. In a CNN poll in early August, Americans, by 54 percent to 41 percent, said they oppose the Afghan war that almost all Americans favored after 9-11 and Obama said in 2008 was the right war for America to fight.

The president is now approaching a decision that may prove as fateful for him and his country as was the one made by Lyndon Johnson to send the Marines ashore at Da Nang in December 1965.

Obama confronts a two-part question:

If, after eight years of fighting, the Taliban is stronger, more capable and closer to victory than it has ever been, what will it cost in additional U.S. troops, casualties, years and billions to turn this around? And what is so vital to us in that wilderness land worth another eight years of fighting, bleeding and dying, other than averting the humiliation of another American defeat?

From Secretary Gates to Gen. Petraeus, U.S. military and political leaders have been unanimous that the Afghan war does not lend itself to a military victory. Unfortunately, the Taliban does seem to believe in a military victory and triumphal return to power, and imposing upon the United States the same kind of defeat their fathers imposed upon the Soviet Union.

Whatever we may say of them, Taliban fighters have shown a greater willingness to die for a country free of us Americans than our Afghan allies have shown to die for the future we Americans envision for them.

In days, McChrystal is to provide the president with an assessment of what will be required for America to prevail.

Almost surely, the general’s answer will be that success will require thousands more U.S. troops, billions more dollars, many more years of casualties. And if Obama yet believes this is a war of necessity we cannot lose, and he must soldier on, his decision will sunder his party and country, and put at risk his presidency.

If he refuses to deepen the U.S. commitment, it is hard to see how the United States can avoid what is at best a bloody stalemate.

But if he chooses to cut America’s losses and get out, Obama risks a strategic debacle that will have our enemies rejoicing and open him up to the charge that he, the first African-American president, lost the war that America began as retribution for 9-11 and fought to prevent a second 9-11.

Had we gone into Afghanistan in 2001, knocked over the Taliban, driven out al-Qaida and departed, we would not be facing what we do today.

But we were seduced by the prospect of converting a backward tribal nation of 25 million, which has resisted every empire to set foot on its inhospitable soil, into a shining new democracy that would be a model for the Islamic world.

Now, whatever Obama decides, we shall pay a hellish price for the hubris of the nation-builders.

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback.

It is all about tribalism. Really?

Pressfield is an old school imperialist. He argues for an American viceroy that should be set-up in Afghanistan. He thinks we can out wait the tribes with our own mercenary tribe. The conclusion by the author is that any goal should be very modest but the effort should span decades if necessary. I don't get it.

My suggestion is to let evolution do its own dirty work and get out of dodge. No effort, no matter how noble will accomplish anything more lasting than provide more monuments for Memorial Day. There is no achievable mission worth the cost of trying to fix Afghanistan.

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HatTip: Hugh Hewitt