You want an exit strategy, then quit talking about it.

Operation Moshtarak: 'The message needs to be clear: we are staying until the job is done.'
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, argues that Operation Moshtarak will only succeed in the long term if Afghans living in Helmand are convinced that we will not desert them.

By Richard Kemp
Published: 7:36PM GMT 14 Feb 2010
Telegraph

Well before Operation Moshtarak was launched, the Taliban knew that a sledgehammer was about to hit them. Many commentators with a little military learning were horrified at this blatant sacrifice of surprise. But General Nick Carter, commander of Operation Moshtarak, knew that didn’t matter because the Taliban would be powerless to respond.
While British, American and Afghan forces continue the hazardous task of clearing the ground they have occupied, the Taliban, unseen, are stalking them. Through lethally experienced eyes they are weighing up our forces’ actions, identifying their dispositions and calculating vulnerabilities.

The next few days will be very dangerous. The Taliban must strike back fast. At both military and civilian targets. To show their own fighters, their supporters and the world that they are not cowed by the might of the infidel war machine. And to demonstrate to the people of Marjah and Nad-e Ali that their reign of terror has not gone away.

The Taliban will try to use improvised explosive devices, mines and booby traps as well as hit-and-run gunfire and suicide strikes. How many get through will depend on the effectiveness of our forces at stopping them. Initially they will depend on vigilance, speed of reaction and the vast array of air and ground firepower at their disposal.

But with no shortage of fighters or munitions, the Taliban will seek to continue attacking in the long term. Intelligence from the locals will become critical to breaking them. Although early signs of support among some of the people is encouraging, it will only be maintained and expanded if we can persuade them that our forces are there to stay and are capable of protecting them.

The Afghan security forces will have to bear much of this burden. Although its capability is increasing impressively, the army is still not ready to stand alone. Understandably the Afghans prefer their own troops to ours, which is why commanders on Operation Moshtarak have where possible put them at the front in dealing with the people. But the locals don’t yet fully trust them to protect against the Taliban. And the Afghan National Police have yet to prove they will not simply replace Taliban oppression with their own form of corruption and abuse.

Through lack of numbers rather than capability or will, British forces don’t have a great track record either, often moving in for a fight then redeploying to deal with problems elsewhere, allowing the Taliban back in with a vengeance.

All of these perceptions will have to be changed, and this includes stopping our constant talk at home of withdrawal and exit strategies. The message to the people of Afghanistan, and to the Taliban, needs to be clear: we are staying until the job is done.

The minute there is adequate security – within days – district governors will be brought in and local councils set up. They will be rapidly resourced for quick impact reconstruction projects to show the local people that life is going to improve. In the medium term, their role should be to identify and direct substantial aid programmes, resourced via the Kabul government. The Afghans must be seen to be in the lead, but we must remain watchful and ensure these bodies do not come to abuse their power or resources.

Operation Moshtarak has been called the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan. If its gains are properly consolidated it could certainly make a major contribution to turning the situation round. But no matter how effective the combined Afghan and Nato forces are in Marjah and Nad-e Ali, we must brace ourselves for continuing bloodshed. The Taliban are far from ready to give up. And in the circumstances of southern Afghanistan no security can be watertight, however many troops are deployed.

Whatever success, however, we achieve in Marjah, Nad-e Ali or elsewhere in Helmand, the insurgency will not be broken until we develop an effective, co-ordinated cross-border strategy with Pakistan, whose territory provides refuge and support for the Taliban. There is not yet any sign of that on the horizon.

US Envoy to Afghanistan Urges No More Troops. Say what?

Whoa baby, what is going on in Dodge? Is this Karl Elkenberry some defeatist pinko? Let's look at the dossier:

Education

Eikenberry graduated from Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1969 and then studied as an undergraduate at West Point, where he graduated in 1973. In August 2007 he returned to Goldsboro to receive the key to the city from the mayor. (Sounds good so far)

He received an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard, where he would later return as National Security Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and an M.A. in political science from Stanford, where he was also a Ph.D candidate. In addition, Eikenberry has studied in Hong Kong at the UK Ministry of Defence Chinese Language School, earning the Foreign Office's Interpreter’s Certificate for Mandarin Chinese, and Nanjing University, earning an advanced degree in Chinese History. (Geez, a US Ambassador with some qualifications for a change.)

Military Career

Eikenberry served two tours of duty in the war in Afghanistan. ( The boy is no theoretical academic) His first tour in Afghanistan was from September 2002- September 2003. During this time he filled two positions; his primary duty was as the United States Security Coordinator for Afghanistan and the second position was the Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan (OMC-A). As the Security Coordinator he worked closely with UNSG Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi to forge a unified international effort to build a cohesive security sector. This Security Sector Reform (SSR) project included building the Afghan National Army (U.S.), reforming the Afghan Police (Germany), Counter-Narcotics (U.K.), Judicial reform (Italy), and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of the militias (Japan and U.N.). In his role as Chief of the OMC-A he was the chief architect of the strategy that built and fielded the first Afghan Army Corps. During his second tour he was Commander of the Combined Forces Command for 18 months, leaving in 2007 to become the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. (I think he may have a better grasp than even Glenn Beck)

Ambassador

On January 29, 2009, The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama had chosen Eikenberry to be the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, replacing William Braucher Wood. The choice of a career army officer for the sensitive post was described by The Times as "highly unusual". On April 3, 2009, the Senate confirmed Eikenberry's nomination, and on April 29, 2009, he was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.

(Gen. Eikenberry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States and its international partners must redouble efforts to reverse Taliban gains in the embattled south and east of the country as well as deal with the booming drug trade that fuels them. He also promised more support to the Afghan national army and police.

"The way ahead is clear but the resources to date have, regrettably, been insufficient," he said.

Speaking hours before the Obama administration is set to unveil a new strategy for the war that will deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan, Gen. Eikenberry said it was "unclear" whether Pakistan's intelligence service has dropped support for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"We can succeed in Afghanistan, it's true, but if we don't address the problem, the linked problems in Pakistan, then we'll have no lasting success," he told the panel.)

The official announcement of his nomination was made on March 11. Following his confirmation as ambassador, he retired from the U.S. military with the rank of Lieutenant General on April 28, 2009. Eikenberry has been allowed to bring his family and wife, Ching Eikenberry, to live with him in Kabul. (Wikipedia and other news sources)



OK, that was then, now what is going on today?

Envoy urges no US troop increaseBBC

The US ambassador in Kabul has written to the White House arguing against sending thousands more American troops to Afghanistan.

In a leaked cable, Karl Eikenberry expressed doubts about the competence of President Hamid Karzai's government.

The message arrived amid intense debate over strategy, with President Obama yet to make a decision on troop numbers.

This dramatic intervention seems to put the envoy at odds with generals wanting reinforcements, correspondents say.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama he held his eighth meeting in a series aimed at refocusing Afghan policy.
Mr Eikenberry, a former US commander in Afghanistan, also raised concerns about corruption within the Afghan government.

He said it was "not a good idea" to send more troops, the BBC has been told.

The cable arrived days before Mr Obama held a crucial strategy session - to discuss the question of whether to send tens of thousands more troops to confront and push back the Taliban.

The cable appears to be a dramatic and last-minute intervention by the ambassador, BBC Washington correspondent Adam Brookes reports.

It comes right at the end of weeks of White House deliberation over how to proceed in Afghanistan, and appears to put the ambassador at odds with the US army, whose generals favour reinforcing and intensifying America's campaign in Afghanistan.

Military commander 'fuming'

The top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has asked for at least 40,000 more US troops.

Barack Obama has held eight meetings with his security advisors.

The US currently has some 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, contributing to a coalition force of more than 100,000.
Gen McChrystal was "fuming" about Mr Eikenberry's intervention, sources said.

At Wednesday's meeting, White House officials said Mr Obama discussed timeframes for four options presented at the meeting but took no decisions on them.

The president said the US commitment should not be open-ended and governance there must improve, they added.

Among the key outstanding issues is said to be the reliability of the government of President Karzai, who was recently declared the winner of a widely criticised election.

Critics have said the decision on Afghanistan is taking too long, while Mr Obama has said he does not want to rush a decision that involves putting troops at risk.

By the way, what was our guy, Karzai, actually saying to the Afghanis during the election? "He knows the Taliban", so he says.

McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure' in Afghanistan

NATO nation building in Afghanistan?

We are to believe that Obama, the Democrats and NATO have the political will to commit the US to the long, long mission in Afghanistan. That is too serious to be laughable. It is absurd and we do not have to go back to Viet Nam to get a hint as to how this will end.

We have been here before and as a matter of fact, we still are. It is called 'International Community' nation building in Kosovo & Bosnia.

First Afghanistan:

According to a story in The Washington Post:

"The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure."

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."

But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

Let's face facts and look at previous NATO nation building efforts in European Muslim conflicts, notably Bosnia and Kosovo. That has been going on for 14 years.

$14 billion and 14 years later, Bosnia is a living experiment of real time nation building. It is a country dictated to by Brussels and Washington. They are the bastard children of the Dayton Agreement.

Along with continued presence of NATO in Bosnia, the US and Nato attack on Yugoslavia resulted in the creation of Kosovo, another Muslim country (after Albania) in Europe. Kosovo is a criminal state run by drugs, organized crime and human traffickiing for prostitution.

Yet, Bosnia and Kosovo are a walk in the park compared to Afghanistan. Before we indulge in wishful thinking in Afghanistan, let's look at Bosnia and Kosovo.

The blame game begins in Afghanistan.

Afghan President Accuses US of Trying to Undermine Him
By VOA News
07 September 2009

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he believes the United States is denouncing his family and political allies in an effort to undermine his position.

In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published Monday, Mr. Karzai said the United States is using "underhanded" tactics to undermine him.

He said he believed that recent U.S. criticism of his running mate, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, was actually aimed at him. He also said accusations that his brother is corrupt are unfounded.

Mr. Karzai also said there might have been incidents of fraud during last month's presidential election. But he dismissed them as "inevitable" in a newly created democracy.

Earlier Monday, a report in a major U.S. newspaper outlined allegations of massive vote fraud committed to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai win re-election.

The New York Times quoted unnamed Afghan and Western officials as saying Mr. Karzai's supporters created as many as 800 fake polling stations that produced hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes.

The newspaper says the votes counted for Mr. Karzai at some polling stations may be 10 times higher than the number of people who actually voted.

Meanwhile, the Karzai campaign has accused other candidates of manipulating votes.

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission says votes from nearly 500 polling stations across the country have been invalidated due to allegations of widespread fraud.

The commission also says it will have to clear 650 serious complaints before the results of the voting can be certified this month.

Partial election results show Mr. Karzai has 48.6 percent of the vote, while his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah has 31.7 percent. The count is based on returns from about 75 percent of the country's polling sites.

A candidate needs to win more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off.

Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission has received more than 2,000 allegations of fraud or abuse from the August 20 presidential election. It says that some of the complaints, if true, would affect the final result.

Once there is a clear winner, international leaders are expected to convene a United Nations conference to discuss Afghanistan's future. A formal call for such a meeting has now been made by Britain, France and Germany.

Brit General sees long war of nation-building in Afghanistan

Afghanistan conflict could last 40 years, says new head of British Army

General Sir David Richards, the new head of the British Army believes the West's mission to stabilise Afghanistan might take as long as 40 years.

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent Telegraph
Published: 8:00AM BST 08 Aug 2009

General Sir David Richards' prediction came as three more British soldiers, part of an elite Special Forces unit, were killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan.

The three men, members of the Special Forces Support Group, died when the vehicle they were travelling in was struck by an explosion near Lashkar Gah in Helmand province. A fourth member of the unit survived the attack but was last night in critical condition.

The SFSG was formed in 2006. Built around 1 Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, its members also include Royal Marines and men from the RAF Regiment. It is part of an integrated UK Special Forces Group that also includes the SAS, the SBS and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, all of whom are active in Afghanistan alongside more than 9,000 regular British troops.

A former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, Sir David will take over as Chief of the General Staff at the end of the month, replacing the outspoken General Sir Richard Dannatt, who has repeatedly questioned the Government's approach to the Afghan mission.

In a magazine interview to be published today, Sir David described the scale of the task facing Western governments trying to establish a stable Afghan regime able to ensure the country is not a base for extremists.
Sir David said: "It will take time. This is nation building - not the starry-eyed type, but nation-building nonetheless. It is not just reconstruction: jobs and simple governance that works are key, and there has to be a strong reconciliation element to the latter.

He added: "The Army's role might evolve, but the whole process might take as long as 30 to 40 years. There is absolutely no chance of NATO pulling out."

That prediction echoes those made by other senior figures including Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the former British ambassador in Kabul, and will fuel fears that the West could become mired in decades of conflict in Afghanistan.
A total of 195 British service personnel have now been killed in Afghanistan in 2001, and the mission there has become a growing political problem for Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister.

Sir Richard has publicly questioned the Government's commitment to defence, and Gordon Brown has faced intense questions about whether forces on the frontline have been provided with adequate vehicles.

Those questions may grow with the disclosure that the three SFSG soldiers were killed while travelling in a Jackal vehicle, which has less armour than some other vehicles used in Afghanistan.

MoD sources insisted that the Jackal's off-road capability made it the appropriate vehicle for the SFSG's work.
However, The Daily Telegraph revealed June that some British commanders believe the Taliban are deliberately targeting the vehicles with bomb attacks because of a high success rate.

Fourteen British soldiers have now been killed while travelling in Jackals.

The MoD confirmed that the men were travelling in a Type 1 Jackal vehicle, which is only lightly armoured. Some British soldiers using Jackals are known to have tried to improve their protection by taping Kevlar pads to the vehicles. After field commanders requested a series of modifications to the Jackal, the MoD in April ordered 110 new Type 2 Jackals. The updated Jackal will have an "enhanced armour configuration".

An MoD spokesman said the new better-protected Jackals will be deployed to Afghanistan "imminently" but could not give a date.

There are more than 9,000 British troops in Afghanistan, and the figure is likely to rise again despite Mr Brown's resistance.

Generals including Sir David have been arguing the greater numbers would allow Western forces to hold more ground safely. Stanley McChrystal, the US general overseeing Afghanistan, is expected to make a formal request for more British troops within weeks.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the new head of NATO, yesterday made a public call for more troops in southern Afghanistan where British forces are based. "Honestly speaking, I think we need more troops," he said.
Afghans vote in a presidential election later this month, with President Hamid Karzai expected to be re-elected.
Mr Karzai's Government has Western backing, but a Daily Telegraph investigation today reveals that privately there are growing concerns about his ability and willingness to tackle corruption and drug trafficking in the country.

Plan your next vacation.

Nato's Straw House

The quick take on NATO is not promising. Since the false ending of the Cold War the most important NATO undertaking has been in Afghanistan, but other than the Germans fascinated by skulls the war has not been conducted with any fire in the NATO belly. The odds of NATO lasting in Afghanistan, till a win, are not good.

Georgia is another matter. Do not hold your breath waiting for Georgia to get into NATO. NATO is not what we hoped it would be. Whether NATO has built a straw house or one of sticks, it sure ain't brick.

The charade may as well stop here. Expansion to Soviet borders is pointless.
We have returned to “spheres of influence” and "balance of power." Get used to it.

___________________

If Nato won't fight, what's it for?
Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 10:33 AM GMT [General]

NATO is meeting in summit at Brussels. Sixty years after the alliance was signed, can anyone tell me what it's for?

The revival of Russian revanchism might seem to answer that question. Except that NATO has been conspicuous by its absence from the Georgian conflict. Let's conjecture that Russia tried something similar in a NATO state. Say it moved troops into Latvia following inter-communal rioting. (It wouldn't declare war, of course. No one ever declares war these days.) Say that, as in Georgia, it agreed to remove its forces but somehow didn't quite get round to pulling them out. Does anyone really believe that this would trigger an all-out NATO counter-offensive? That Turkish troops would surge up through Georgia to harry Russia's south? That the Norwegian and Icelandic navies would blockade Archangel? That American and Canadian and British and Belgian forces would be dispatched to relieve the Baltic States?

It seems likely that that a Soviet attack on West Germany during the Cold War would indeed have triggered a military response. Certainly the possibility was strong enough that the USSR never took the risk. In that sense, NATO was a triumphant success. But is it still the best possible vehicle for the advancement of its members' collective interests?

I ask the question with genuine regret. In the days when NATO had an obvious purpose, I was one of its biggest supporters. As a teenager, I was a member of an organisation called Peace Through NATO, which used to hold debates against CND supporters. Our side would always begin by smugly reminding the CNDers that it was thanks to the nuclear deterrent that we were free to hold such debates at all. How tiresome they must have found us.

The end of the Cold War removed NATO's foundational rationale. In order to find itself a new role, the alliance took to expanding rapidly. But, in doing so, there is a danger that it has made a fiction of Article V: the clause that treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.

I hope I'm wrong. I'd certainly be in favour of fighting for the freedom of the Baltics. Britain did so once before. The only direct clash between our Armed Services and the Red Army was in Estonia in 1918. We lost a number of sailors, who were buried locally. When the Soviets annexed Estonia, they dynamited every monument that dated from the independence period. But the graves of the British sailors were kept hidden and tended by local patriots. They are still there. I hope the British would fight again. But would the rest?

Germany to Deploy 200 Combat Troops to Non-Combat Zone in Afghanistan

The fighting is in the south of Afghanistan. Germany is doing it's NATO duty and sending 200 combat troops to the quiet north. Maybe we overdid it when we neutered Germany after WWII, but what on earth is the point to two hundred troops in the wrong zone?

In Europe, there are 116,000 US military personnel including 75,603 who are stationed in Germany. Are we that stupid?

If the 26 nations that comprise NATO can’t sustain a coalition against the Taliban, which is the largest supplier of heroin to Europe and an ongoing terror training ground, what good is NATO to the United States?

_____________________

Germany Agrees to Expanded Military Role in Afghanistan DW

Germany will deploy around 200 combat soldiers in northern Afghanistan, but will not move its troops to the country's more violent south, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said on Wednesday, Feb. 6.

German troops will be sent to replace the Norwegian contingent scheduled to leave Afghanistan this summer. German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung confirmed the deployment at a press conference, saying that it was important to maintain the quick response force.

"NATO has made the request," Jung told a news conference. "We have decided after consultation with the military that we cannot allow a gap to develop."

Under current mandates, Germany can station up to 3,500 troops in northern Afghanistan as part of the 40,000-strong NATO International Security Assistance Force.

Venturing outside the "safe zone"

The Quick Reaction Force will be the first combat unit Germany sends to Afghanistan. Most of the 3,200 Bundeswehr soldiers serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are involved in reconstruction work in the relatively peaceful northern part of the country and near the capital of Kabul.

The new mission might take troops out of this relative safe zone. In the two years that the Norwegians were responsible for the Quick Reaction Force, their troops were deployed only once outside of the regional northern command.

Jung said that the German Quick Reaction Force would do the same.

"If our friends are in an emergency situation, we will help them," Jung said.

US, Britain want more


NATO defense ministers meet on Thursday and Friday in Lithuania to discuss the Afghanistan mission. The US and Britain want other NATO members to share more responsibility for stationing troops in the south of the country, where most of the fighting against al Qaeda is taking place.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in London on Wednesday, said very few NATO countries had troops in Afghanistan's most dangerous regions.

"We believe very strongly that there ought to be a sharing of that burden throughout the (NATO) alliance," Rice said.

Britain announced it would maintain its current level of 7,800 troops in Afghanistan. The US has 29,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, about half of them attached to the NATO mission.

Stretched to the limit

Berlin has consistently rejected those calls. Germany's military capacity is stretched to the limit and the country wants to finish the work it started in northern Afghanistan, the government says.

"We see our responsibility as being in northern Afghanistan," deputy government spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters in Berlin. "That's where we aim to be successful, and that's how it will remain."

Germany does not expect the issue of troop deployments to add tension to its ties to the United States other NATO members, according to Steg.

"This is not a bilateral question directed at German-US ties," he said, adding that a request for more troops from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was sent to several European NATO members.

A call for more development aid

The German public remains largely opposed to increasing the Bundeswehr's commitments in Afghanistan. A Forsa survey on Wednesday showed that 85 percent of those polled were against sending troops to the south.

Politicians are divided over whether Germany should play a bigger role in southern Afghanistan.

Oskar Lafontaine of the Left Party said the Quick Reaction Force is a way for the government to further entangle Germany in an unjust war. The deployment "opens the door for a combat mission in all of Afghanistan," Lafointaine said.

The Executive Director of Medico International, an aid group working on human rights and health, also criticized the decision.

"Everyone knows that the problems in Afghanistan cannot be solved with combat operations," Thomas Gebauer said.

Past experience has shown that military escalation worsens the security situation, according to Medico. If the violence is to end, Afghanistan needs peace, rebuilding and development. Germany spends 530 million euros ($785 million) on military operations but only 100 million euros on reconstruction, Gebauer said.

Afghans say foreign troops improve safety

Afghans say foreign troops have helped make the region significantly safer, according to results of a survey released on Wednesday.

Two out of three Afghans in the northeastern part of the country said that they feel "much safer" than they did two years ago. A full 99 percent said they felt safer.

"The improvement is largely attributed to the presence of foreign troops," according to the poll conducted in February 2007 by researchers from Berlin's Free University.

The study found that four of every five of the 2,000 Afghan households surveyed felt foreign troops have had a positive impact on their physical security. The Afghans had an equally positive view of their national government.

Canada Demands Backup In Afghanistan or They Leave.

Will the Nato coalition last in Afghanistan?

Canada's demand gets attention

NATO defence ministers set to discuss Kandahar mission ultimatum
Jan 30, 2008
ALLAN WOODS
OTTAWA BUREAU The Star

OTTAWA–Canada's Afghanistan ultimatum will be at the top of the agenda when NATO defence ministers meet in Lithuania in one week's time, a spokesperson for the military alliance said yesterday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this week that Canada's 2,500 soldiers in Kandahar must be backed up by an additional 1,000 troops from another country or he will pull out of the Afghan mission in February 2009.

NATO spokesperson James Appathurai said he is optimistic NATO can find more soldiers, but indicated that Harper's threat has caused some alarm at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

"Clearly there is an issue in Kandahar and this will certainly be discussed in Vilnius," he said, referring to the Lithuanian capital where defence ministers will gather on Feb. 7 and 8.

The comments came as Washington endorsed Harper's criticism that NATO's efforts have not been adequate in Afghanistan, particularly in Kandahar province.

The Pentagon has long complained European militaries are not sending enough soldiers or sharing enough of the risk in Afghanistan, and a spokesperson said yesterday that NATO could not count on the U.S. to carry a heavier load.

The U.S. is deploying 3,200 marines to Afghanistan in March, 2,200 of whom will be sent to Kandahar and other dangerous southern provinces.

But that rotation will only last seven months, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell said in Washington. "That's as much and as deep as we're going at this point," he said. "We've done, as I made clear, what we can do."

Harper has vowed to lead a diplomatic effort to convince Canada's NATO partners to make greater contributions to the multinational force, and his efforts are focused on a major meeting of the alliance in Bucharest in April.

But Canada will also get help from Washington, Morrell said.

"You will hear from us, as we get closer to Vilnius and Bucharest, a desire to have our allies who are providing combat forces to the efforts in Afghanistan ... see what more they can do," he said. "So, hopefully, we'll make some progress there that will help the Canadians extend their commitment to the mission."

Last week's report by former Liberal minister John Manley on the future of the Afghan mission painted a gloomy picture of disjointed United Nations and NATO efforts and of poor co-ordination of aid and development dollars. But it also said the Canadian mission was bound to fail, and should be ended, if Canada did not get military help, plus transport helicopters and unmanned aerial surveillance craft.

"We obviously have taken good note of what Harper has said and we have read the Manley report very carefully. We share the view that Afghanistan needs long-term support, and that includes military support," Appathurai said.

He said 10 countries have already promised to boost the number of soldiers they have on the ground in Afghanistan, including Poland.

"I don't think there is any reason to call into question NATO's credibility. The mission continues to increase in size and continues to achieve success," he said.

What is Going on in Afghanistan?

The former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered his dire prediction after being proposed as a new "super envoy" role in Afghanistan.

Lord Ashdown said: "We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely."

The main reason for this lack of progress is the continuing failure of many Nato states to provide sufficient numbers of combat troops.

As Robert Gates, the American Defence Secretary, remarked recently, the alliance has more than two million soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen at its disposal, but only a fraction of that number is available to participate in the most important mission in Nato's history because of the national caveats that the governments of many member states have imposed on their forces deploying to areas where they might be in danger of suffering casualties.

Not surprisingly, this issue tops the agenda at this week's meeting of Nato ministers in the Netherlands, which is also discussing the crisis over Turkey's threat to invade northern Iraq.

Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown
By Tom Coghlan Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:50am BST 25/10/2007

Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.

The former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered his dire prediction after being proposed as a new "super envoy" role in Afghanistan.

Lord Ashdown said: "We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely."

The assessment will be considered extreme by some diplomats but timely by those pressing for more resources for Nato operations.

Lord Ashdown added: "I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale.

"Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this [failure] to match this magnitude."

Lord Ashdown, 66, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, was speaking in advance of a Nato summit in the Dutch town of Noordwijk yesterday.

Britain and the US infuriated by the lack of assistance granted by allies to those countries with forces operating in Afghanistan.

The tensions are particularly acute given that members pledged a year ago that they would do everything within their power to ensure "success" in the country.

With a growing sense in Kabul that the reconstruction and military efforts are lacking focus, Britain and the US are pushing for the creation of a super envoy and are looking for a political heavyweight to fill the role.

Both countries consider that Tom Koenigs, the current UN special representative to Kabul who is a former regional politician in Germany, lacks the international standing to fulfil such a role. He will complete his posting by Christmas.

It is understood that the super envoy would have the existing duties of the UN representative but also greater powers to co-ordinate the rebuilding of the country after decades of war. Progress in reconstruction and development - especially in the violent south - has been sporadic and considered largely unsatisfactory by the international community.

However, there remains widespread discussion over the precise remit that the new figure would have, particularly in relation to any oversight they might have of Nato operations and Operation Enduring Freedom, the US's separate mission.

A spokesman at the British Embassy in Kabul told The Daily Telegraph: "There is an important role for the United Nations to play in co-ordinating efforts in Afghanistan and we would like to see the international effort better co-ordinated."

A senior diplomat who declined to be named said: "The overall leadership here is that of President Karzai.

"So whoever takes on this role needs to be able to co-ordinate the international community but also serve the interests and structures of a sovereign state."

Apart from Lord Ashdown, candidates under consideration for the new enhanced role include Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, the serving French foreign minister, and Jaroslav Kaczynski, the former Polish prime minister who lost Sunday's general election.

Is Winning in Afghanistan More Important than Iraq?

The International Herald Tribune has an excellent piece on how the Afghan mission was diluted and weakened by the diversion into Iraq. It is a lengthy convincing synopsis of what is unraveling in Afghanistan. How a 'good war' in Afghanistan went bad

Hat tip: Doug

...General James Jones, a retired American officer and a former NATO supreme commander, said Iraq caused the United States to "take its eye off the ball" in Afghanistan. He warned that the consequences of failure "are just as serious in Afghanistan as they are in Iraq."

"Symbolically, it's more the epicenter of terrorism than Iraq," he said. "If we don't succeed in Afghanistan, you're sending a very clear message to the terrorist organizations that the U.S., the U.N. and the 37 countries with troops on the ground can be defeated."

Can a Drug Addled, Feminized Western Culture Survive?

Success in Afghanistan seems contingent upon something that seems highly unlikely; NATO sending adequate troops. I don't like the sound of this:

From a SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH NATO COMMANDER JOHN CRADDOCK

SPIEGEL: If NATO fails in Afghanistan, would it be the end for the most powerful security alliance in the world?

Craddock: I think it would put the alliance in jeopardy. It is the most important mission in NATO and I think it's critical that the alliance come together and support it totally and completely.

SPIEGEL: Do you think NATO is up to the task?

Craddock: I am encouraged and I am confident. But I don't promise. I can't guarantee a thing. If we get what we need to do that mission, the forces, then there is a reasonably good to very good probability of success. We have yet to get that. What we still don't have is the full force which allows us not only to provide security throughout the country but also to provide the capacity to get into the reconstruction. If we had the full forces we could lay those forces down and would not have to move them around.

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I am not faulting the General. It's the message that I am hearing; that unless the NATO gets serious and commits, the chances for success in Afghanistan are "not so good." Police training lags military training by four to five years. We can't or won't pay military and police wages commensurate with the Taliban pay scale and we don't have enough boots on the ground. Add to that, the poppy situation. Where's the opium money going? Private armies or tribute for the jihadis. I don't blame the General for not promising what he can't deliver. I seriously doubt that he's going to get the manpower that he needs in Afghanistan. Certainly not from the Europeans and "likely" not from the United States. In other words, "he's screwed."

Why won't western people support the effort to beat back fundamentalist Islam? Is the West no longer a serious society? Has it has become so sick, so nihilistic that, believing in nothing, it will fight for nothing? Have multiple generations of post WWII agnostics been trained to depend on the nanny state from cradle to grave? Have we trained the Ritalin boys that via conflict resolution and anger management every thing can be worked out by dialog? Have our fat, increasingly illiterate kids been trained to believe that guns are evil and self-defense should be left to the police? Do our daughters worship the "Pop tarts of the popular culture?" Has each succeeding generation gotten fatter and fatter on the "light bread" of humanism? Is this "rich, multi-ethnic, rainbow of diversity" culture going to succeed or will it be cast down like the Tower of Babel? Is Islam like the Borg; an irresistible force which assimilates or destroys everyone within it's path?

Stay tuned, but be warned, you may not like what you see as the west retreats from yet another distasteful war.

Nato is a relic of the post-WWII. Should it be sustained?

German FM: U.S. anti-missile defense plan could split Europe
www.chinaview.cn
2007-03-18 13:3

BERLIN, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Germany on Saturday cautioned the European countries against the danger of a split by Washington's plan to locate parts of an anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, which has sparked debates in Europe.

Europe should not allow divisions during the debates about the U.S. missile defense system, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an article to be published in the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Security in Europe is the common concern of all European countries, and the Europeans should rely more on their own strength for European security on condition that the transatlantic military alliance not be compromised, he said.

"Our top priority remains disarmament and not rearmament. We don't want a new arms race in Europe," Steinmeier was quoted by local media as saying.

The minister said the issue should be discussed within the framework of NATO.

The United States and Russia should avoid the "old reflexes" of the Cold War, he said, adding that Washington should not trigger mistrust and a new insecurity in Europe, even though it says the planned deployment of the anti-missile shield in Europe is to counter a threat from Iran.

"A missile defense system should be neither a cause or a pretext for a new arms race," Steinmeier said.

On Jan. 20, Washington proposed to start negotiations on the deployment of a radar center of its National Missile Defense (NMD) system in the Czech Republic and interceptor rockets in Poland, and the two countries agreed to the talks.

Washington said the missile defense system is not targeted at Russia. However, the plan has drawn sharp criticism from Moscow.

Over half of the populations in both Poland and the Czech Republic are opposed to the plan.

My initial reaction to this is not positive. The obvious problem is that the United States has interests and concerns that may not be shared by the EU as an entirety. However, the pledge in Nato, is that an attack against one is an attack against all. There are three nuclear powers in Nato, the US, France and the UK. Any military conflict that involves any of those members could go nuclear.

In order for the US to fulfill its obligations it may have to intervene in the support of any of the Nato members which include Turkey and countries through and including the center and northern Europe.

Any military conflict may involve exposing the US to possible nuclear missile attack. Not likely, but possible. The Germans have to understand that.

Steinmeier said,"Our top priority remains disarmament and not rearmament. We don't want a new arms race in Europe." The top priority should be the common defense of Europe, not adding to or reducing arms. If Germany wishes to equate the US and Russian defense posture, then Germany needs to consider its participation in Nato. It may very well require the US to do likewise.

It may very well be time for the US to consider all our military committments, some of which are non-sensible. Certainly the treaty with Taiwan is up there, but in this day and age, the Nato alliance and others should be reviewed.

Update: Is this video report a phony? Is it staged?

This is an update of this post. When I first posted it, I was surprised at the cameramen continuing the filming and not getting shot. Several of the posters pointed out that they thought this was staged. I looked again and believe it may be staged. Give us your opinions and spread this to other sites for the purpose of exposing it to further scrutiny.