taliban - Robert Maguire on Diigo

18 Dec 09

Secretary of State Colin Powell read a memo entitled “Preventing an Afghan Humanitarian Situation Crisis.” It warned that Afghanistan was “verge of a widespread and precipitous famine,” and estimated that 3.8 million Afghans—more than 6 percent of the population—would be affected by the food shortage. Powell initialed the memo and wrote, “Keep me informed.”
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- Some alleged the aid was a reward for the Taliban’s ban on opium production; others decried that money was given to a repressive regime which was harboring Osama Bin Laden, and had recently blown up two UNESCO-designated, sixth-century Buddha statues.
- It reminds us that the government of Afghanistan was unable to independently provide for its citizens even before the NATO invasion.
- “unless immediate action is taken, the situation may deteriorate into one that is irreversible.”
- inally, the US famine relief actions show that Colin Powell’s Department of State felt that a stable Afghanistan was in the United States’ strategic interest before the attacks of 9/11 were ordered from within its territory.

To talk or not to talk: the Taliban’s internal divide | The AfPak Channel

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US politics waronterror pakistan afghanistan taliban negotiations

But according to intelligence sources in the Pakistani government, some members of the high level leadership of the Afghan Taliban are indeed interested in talks with the U.S. and its Afghan allies. They want to end the insurgency as soon as possible because simply put, they are tired. "It is too hard for them to fight for decades," said my source.
Mullah Baradar, the deputy to the Afghan Taliban's leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and de-facto operational commander of the movement, is leading those who favor talks with the Afghan government.
2 more annotations...
- However, Siraj Haqqani, the powerful son of the well known Afghan militant commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, is opposed to entering peace talks with the coalition.
- reputedly the strongest commander in eastern Afghanistan, and has the support of large numbers of Arab fighters who oppose negotiating with coalition forces absent a total withdrawal, and Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

10 Dec 09

U.S. Diplomacy Makes A Call To Tech Support : NPR

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09 Dec 09

Matthew Yglesias » The Price of Soldiering

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General Stanley McChrysal seems to have made some news at today’s hearings with the revelation that the Taliban pays higher wages than the Afghan government for a soldiers.
“if the Obama administration and NATO are correct that many Taliban foot soldiers essentially fight because of economic opportunity, then this is a glaring, flashing red light of a problem.”

Interviewing Evil, Ctd - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

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04 Dec 09

Message to People of Pakistan

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in Afghanistan and with Pakistan

Message to People of Afghanistan

www.state.gov/...133093.htm - Preview

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With Key Role, Gates Stands to Get Credit -- or Blame - WSJ.com

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President Barack Obama's new strategy for the flagging Afghan war is largely the handiwork of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who developed the idea of sending U.S. reinforcements and then helped persuade administration officials to support it.
"Everyone talks about Afghanistan is Obama's war, but it's really Gates's war now in a way that it never was before," said a military official with recent experience in Afghanistan who is supportive of Mr. Gates's strategy. "Gates has the commander he wants, the troops he wants, and the strategy he wants. He'll get a lot of credit if we win, and a lot of the blame if we don't."
7 more annotations...
- Mr. Gates is a Republican with strong support on Capitol Hill
- Mr. Gates has been focused on Afghanistan for decades. During a stint as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s, Mr. Gates helped oversee the covert U.S. effort to funnel weaponry and money to the Islamic militants battling the former Soviet Union.
- When the administration began reviewing its Afghan policy this fall, Mr. Gates flew to a Belgian airbase for a secret meeting with Gen. McChrystal, who told him he needed roughly 40,000 troops to reverse the Taliban's momentum.
- The defense chief was initially uneasy with Gen. McChrystal's large troop request because he believed the size of the Soviet occupation force in Afghanistan in the 1980s had helped fuel the rebellion against the Russians, according to an official who regularly interacts with both men.
- Mr. Gates developed a compromise plan in an effort to bridge the gulf between Mr. Biden and Gen. McChrystal. Mr. Gates proposed that the U.S. send 30,000 of its own troops to Afghanistan to beat back the Taliban and sharply accelerate the training of the Afghan security forces.
- To maintain leverage on Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mr. Gates also argued that the new troops should be deployed to Afghanistan for a limited period of time rather than for the kind of open-ended deployment sought by Gen. McChrystal, according to an official familiar with the deliberations.
- The proposal quickly won the backing of both Ms. Clinton and Adm. Mullen, the president's top military adviser. Roughly two weeks ago, Mr. Obama began to signal to participants in the review that it was his preferred course as well, according to people familiar with the matter.

02 Dec 09

How President Obama decided on the Afghanistan strategy | The AfPak Channel

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There are six objectives those forces will try to accomplish.

First, reverse the momentum of the Taliban in coming months.

Second, deny the Taliban access to key cities and population centers as well as control of major roads.

Third, prevent al Qaeda from regaining a safe haven in Afghanistan.

Fourth, degrade the Taliban to the point that the Afghan army and
police can take up responsibility for security in certain districts and
provinces.

Fifth, build up the size of the Afghan army to 134,000 by 2010 and
also the size of the police so that by the summer of 2011 the U.S. and
NATO can start handing over security to the Afghan army in certain
areas.

Right now, of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces only one, Kabul province,
is entirely under Afghan military and police control. The officials
emphasized that the handover to Afghan security services in 2011 would
likely be possible only in "some parts of the country."

Sixth, to build up the key institutions of the Afghan government such as the Ministry of the Interior.
A further dimension of the strategy is to encourage the
“reintegration” of those Taliban fighters willing to lay down their
arms, although one official conceded that senior Taliban leaders had
shown little interest in taking such offers up, as for the moment, they
believe they are winning the war in Afghanistan.

Obama: Cunning Again? - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

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I love the time line that Obama has proposed for withdrawing our troops
from Afghanistan. Crafty. The neocons (McCain for one) are already
saying that it gives comfort to the enemy, that they will just wait
until we leave and then attack again. And the reason this is bad is
what?

I think the hope of the White House is that the Taliban
will lay low. If the Taliban want to wait until we leave, perhaps
there is time for the Afghans to train and begin to defend themselves.
If the Taliban attacks, there are enough troops to counter their
attacks and weaken them by attrition. A win/win for us.

Obama
is also telling the Afghans in the street that we are leaving, which
hopefully will say to them that we are not their enemy, not their
occupiers, and hopefully keep ordinary patriotic Afghans from joining
the Taliban.

Very cool.

01 Dec 09

Matthew Yglesias » Bush and Rumsfeld Let Osama Escape

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politics US cheney rumsfeld binladen reference waronterror documents afghanistan taliban sept11

A new Senate report, thankfully, finally focuses attention on how we failed and why:

“The decision not to deploy American forces to go after Bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks,” the report says.

“On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, Bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today.”

Rumsfeld’s argument at the time, the report says, was that deploying too many American troops could jeopardize the mission by creating an anti-US backlash among the local populace.

The report dismisses arguments at the time from Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defending the decision and arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about Bin Laden’s location.

“The review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.”

Another reminder of the horrible legacy of the George W. Bush administration.

21 Nov 09

Karzai's Cronies | Foreign Policy

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Ahmed Wali Karzai
Muhammad Qasim Fahim
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- an example of the lengths the Afghan leader has gone to patch
  up old feuds: Fahim once arrested and beat Karzai in the 1990s, on suspicions
  that he was a spy for Pakistan.
- vice president
- According to a 2003 Human Rights Watch
  report, Fahim was able to do this by threatening the members of several nascent
  political parties following the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Der Spiegel also reported that Fahim "head[s] up the
  country's lucrative kidnapping industry." Above Fahim (R) walks with Karzai (C) and former
  Afghan King Muhammad Zahir Shah (L) on Nov. 3, 2003 in Kabul.
- General Abdul Rashid
  Dostum
- Afghanistan's Uzbek minority
- But the
  general returned just before the election to deliver the Uzbek vote to Karzai,
  winning back his post in the process.
- Thousands of
  Taliban militants, who surrendered to his forces, part of the American allied
  Northern Forces in 2001, were packed
  into closed metal shipping containers, where many -- a State Department
  report mentions 1,500 -- suffocated while being transported to prison. Despite
  rumors of a mass grave, U.S. officials discouraged an investigation of the
  case.
- Asadullah Khalid
- governor of Kandahar province
- During his
  tenure, Canada's government learned that he was "personally involved in torture
  and abuse of detainees," according to an article in the Globe and Mail. Khalid was accused of running a network of secret
  prisons which he visited himself to
  torture prisoners. In April 2008, Canadian foreign minister Maxime Bernier
  caused a stir in both Canada and Afghanistan by publicly suggested that Khalid
  should be removed from his post.
- Mohammad Ibrahim Adel
- minister of mines
- Karzai's brother Mahmoud was awarded the factory, after allegedly arriving in
  Adel's office with a cardboard box carrying a $25 million cash guarantee. The Washington
  Post reported that, according to a U.S. official, Adel also accepted a $30
  million bribe to award a massive copper extraction project to the Chinese
  state-run Metallurgical Group Corp. Now Adel gets to pick a company to extract
  iron ore from another big deposit. Guess who's a front-runner for that deal...
- Haji Mohammad Muhaqiq
- minister of planning in the transition government
- According to Human
  Rights Watch, troops under Muhaqiq's command were guilty of crimes
  including rape and widespread looting and violence in provinces under their
  control in 2001-2002, specifically against Pashtun villagers. In one village,
  his troops killed 37 residents, the largest intentional killing of civilians in
  post-Taliban Afghanistan.
- Abdul Rasul Sayyaf
- He is also a staunch Islamist with past ties
  to some of the world's most notorious terrorists. According to the 9/11 Commission Report,
  Sayyaf gave future 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed his first introduction
  to the Afghan jihad in 1987. Sayyaf would become his mentor, and provide
  him with military training and connections to other jihadists until the late
  1990s. Sayyaf also maintained a close relationship with Osama bin Laden, who
  funneled him money to continue the insurgency against the Soviets.
- Karim Khalili
- In
  2003, Human Rights Watch quoted witnesses who reported that soldiers under
  Khalili's command continued to rape, kidnap, and forcibly recruit.

18 Nov 09

Daily brief: Clinton in Kabul for Karzai's inauguration | The AfPak Channel

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US politics waronterror pakistan statistics taliban afghanistan schools approvalrating obana karzai corruption

Whether
Karzai will appoint reformers or stack his cabinet with political
friends remains an open question that worries Afghan and international
observers alike (AFP, Independent).
U.S. officials have reportedly given Karzai a list of 40 people it
considers "clean enough" to participate in his new cabinet.

Presumably
not included on the "clean enough" list is the president's half-brother
Ahmed Wali Karzai, who has become a "symbol of cronyism and a lightning
rod for criticism of all that is wrong with Karzai's administration" (AP). Alexandra Zavis has a must-read on the plague of corruption in Afghanistan (Los Angeles Times).
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- Two
  new polls on Afghanistan were released earlier today, the first from
  Washington Post/ABC finding that while Americans are nearly evenly
  split on whether Obama should order a smaller or larger number of U.S.
  troops to Afghanistan, almost half believe Obama's policies are not
  making much difference in making the U.S. safer from terrorism (Washington Post).
  The second poll from CBS found that 69 percent of Americans think the
  war in Afghanistan is going badly, and only 38 percent of those
  surveyed approve of Obama's performance in handling Afghanistan, down
  from 58 percent in April (CBS). The full results of the polls can be found here (Washington Post, CBS).
- Another
  new report released today comes from the British aid agency Oxfam,
  finding that seven of ten Afghans surveyed believe poverty and
  unemployment are to blame for the country's ongoing conflict (BBC, AFP).
  The full report, which assesses that after the past three decades of
  war the "social fabric of the country is fractured," is available from
  Oxfam (Oxfam).
- After
  the Pakistani Army took journalists on a second guided tour of South
  Waziristan yesterday, veteran correspondents Pam Constable and Sabrina
  Tavernise have essential reads on the site of the one-month-old
  Pakistani military offensive in the militant-infested tribal agency on
  the border with Afghanistan (Washington Post, New York Times).
  Zahid Hussain reports that commanders believe most of the region's some
  10,000 militants have melted into the imposing mountains or fled to
  neighboring agencies, foreshadowing a long struggle (Wall Street Journal, Times of London).
  There has been no reporting about civilian casualties caused by the
  operations, though more than 300,000 Pakistanis have fled the conflict
  zone.
- The Pakistani Army took the cadre of reporters to a school
  in Ladha, a town in South Waziristan that Taliban militants used as a
  base, and showed a school that officials claimed was used as a training
  camp for suicide bombers (AP, Al Jazeera).
  In Sararogha, a nearby village that is also a militant stronghold,
  Chris Brummitt reports seeing a school with a room used by the Taliban
  as a pseudo-courthouse complete with documents detailing a property
  dispute. The U.S. is reportedly putting pressure on Pakistan to expand
  its anti-militant offensive into North Waziristan and the Baluchi city
  of Quetta, believed to be home to the leadership of the Afghan Taliban (Telegraph).

Informed Comment: Pakistani Military Takes Taliban Strongholds; Maulana Fazlullah Surfaces in Afghanistan

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On Tuesday, for instance, Pakistani troops took the militant stronghold of Laddah, South Waziristan,, reporting that they found a large cache of jihadi literature, mainly in Arabic. The town, formerly of 10,000, appears to have been a training camp for guerrillas, including "Arabs and Uzbeks." The Pakistani arm's assault on the place left it in ruins, and all 10,000 civilian inhabitants had already fled, albeit the remaining militants put up a hard fight.
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- Last week, the military similarly took Sararogha, of which there likewise doesn't seem to be much left. Islamabad says its troops killed 180 Taliban in the course of the campaign. The town is alleged to have been a center for the training of suicide bombers. The Taliban Movement of Pakistan had already done a lot of damage to its buildings in 2008 when they took it. The Pakistani military warned inhabitants to leave before they went in, and locals are eager to return, though it is doubtful much is left of their homes.
  
  The 30,000 crack Pakistani troops fighting in South Waziristan are now focusing on the important city of Makin. They began the campaign in October and have rapidly swept the Taliban before them.
- In a blow to Pakistan's hopes of finishing off the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, it was announced Tuesday that Maulana Fazlullah, a leader of the Swat Taliban was not killed when the Pakistani army retook the valley, but rather has fled to Afghanistan.
  
  On the other hand, the widespread rejoicing of the people of Swat over the defeat of the Taliban in their area, and the appearance of anti-Taliban banners there, augurs ill for Maulana Fazlullah's political future.
- In the Khyber tribal area, Taliban blew up a village girls' school on Tuesday. The Taliban's ideology differs from mainstream Islam in disapproving of women knowing how to read and write; the male Taliban are often poor, rural males with a smattering of seminary study, and apparently they need someone to feel superior to, so women are it.

15 Nov 09

The Nation: American People's Money used to Sponsor Taliban • videosift.com

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12 Nov 09

Daily brief: U.S. ambassador to Kabul cautions against more troops | The AfPak Channel

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The
president reportedly felt it necessary after yesterday's meeting to
clarify that U.S. commitment to Afghanistan is "not open-ended" and
that Kabul must improve governance in the country, according to an
administration official (AFP, CNN, Al Jazeera).
Helene Cooper assesses, however, that the international community lacks
sufficient leverage over Karzai and will not fully pull out of the
country (New York Times). And analysts and officials alike lament the continued involvement of warlords in Afghanistan's political system (AP).
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asserted yesterday that he
expects allies to provide more resources for NATO's training mission in
Afghanistan.
3 more annotations...
- Taliban
  fighters are expanding their control of Afghanistan's eastern
  Nuristan province, and militant leaders claim to have reopened schools
  and appointed local officials in the area, while some video footage
  shows Taliban brandishing what appear to be U.S.-made weapons (Al Jazeera).
  Some 150,000 Afghans have reportedly been forced to flee fighting
  across the country between the Taliban and coalition forces,
  particularly the war-ravaged southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar,
  and Uruzgan, creating a serious hurdle for the Obama administration's
  plans to stabilize the country (Wall Street Journal).
- A
  Pakistani public affairs officer working for the Iranian consulate in
  Pakistan was shot and killed in Peshawar
- (BBC, CNN, Dawn)

11 Nov 09

An articulate plan for security | The AfPak Channel

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As someone who talks to many Afghans -- from government
officials to shopkeepers, students and others -- and the international
community on a daily basis, the answer is very clear: Afghans need security and
stability before anything else can be put forth.
In terms of security, more troops are fundamental. But this
has to be spelled out clearly by the Obama administration. When speaking to
Afghans here, they agree that more troops are needed, but an entire plan is
also needed to know when the troops will arrive, where they will be deployed, what
will they carry out, and -- this is what concerns Afghans a lot -- when they
will be leaving. The what part is the most important one; Afghans here agree
that more troops are necessary to support Afghanistan's own security forces,
the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.
2 more annotations...
- Among the increased number of troops, Afghanistan needs many experts to
  train and coach Afghans in security-related issues. Not only will
  this involve Afghans in rebuilding their own country, but it will also enable
  them to see results coming from their work. This will also allow a realistic
  timetable for U.S.
  forces to leave: as soon as effective and transparent outcomes are seen.
- Moreover, focus needs to be placed on clearing out Taliban
  strongholds in the border region of Pakistan
  and Afghanistan.

More talking, not more troops | The AfPak Channel

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US politics diplomacy statedept military waronterror taliban al-qaeda pakistan afghanistan statistics reference

Building a country at gunpoint has failed.
But how many roads are
built in rural Afghanistan
these days without paying bribes to local insurgents? How many Pashtun
villagers would get polio vaccinations without permission from the Taliban?
Making the country better doesn't necessarily require fighting the insurgents;
in many cases, it requires working with them.
3 more annotations...
- A mythology has emerged that Afghanistan was abandoned and immediately fell
  to pieces; in fact, the Najibullah government survived as long as money flowed
  from Moscow.
  Without foreign troops to support the regime, Najibullah bribed his opponents
  and gave up territory to local tribes. That's not a great model, but it's
  better than escalating war.
- A Georgetown
  University study reached two
  conclusions about that period of history: 1) the Afghan rebels were good at
  resisting invaders, but poorly organized for conventional war; and 2) the
  insurgents squabbled among themselves after the common enemy departed.
- he
  organizations that could deliver the best intelligence about al Qaeda are the
  Taliban, the Haqqani network, and the Hekmatyar group. Fighting terrorism
  doesn't necessarily require killing insurgents; in many cases, it requires
  working with them.

AfPak experts advise Obama | The AfPak Channel

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US politics diplomacy statedept military waronterror taliban al-qaeda pakistan afghanistan statistics reference

Graeme Smith, More
talking, not more troops

J Alexander Thier, Prioritize
in Afghanistan

Michael Innes, Nearly
Anywhere Terrorists Operate
Gretchen Peters, It's not about the number of troops

Asma Nemati, An
articulate plan for security

Peter Bergen,
Time
for the heavy lifting

Matthew Yglesias » Taliban and al-Qaeda

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Mullah Omar and his Taliban are looking to distance themselves from al-Qaeda:
We assure all countries that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as a responsible force, will not extend its hand to cause jeopardy to others,” Omar said in a written statement in September.
2 more annotations...
- “Al-Qaeda’s path is now different from the Taliban’s path, and they are growing more separated.”
- I could have sworn that just a few weeks ago there was a widely-read report stating that the leadership of al Qaeda and the Taliban were now nearly indistinguishable. Ah, yes. Peter Bergen at the New Republic. http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-front

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Document Friday: Afghanistan, “Heading Towards a Catastrophe” before 9/11? « UNREDACTED

To talk or not to talk: the Taliban’s internal divide | The AfPak Channel

U.S. Diplomacy Makes A Call To Tech Support : NPR

Matthew Yglesias » The Price of Soldiering

Interviewing Evil, Ctd - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Message to People of Pakistan

Message to People of Afghanistan

With Key Role, Gates Stands to Get Credit -- or Blame - WSJ.com

How President Obama decided on the Afghanistan strategy | The AfPak Channel

Obama: Cunning Again? - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Matthew Yglesias » Bush and Rumsfeld Let Osama Escape

Karzai's Cronies | Foreign Policy

Daily brief: Clinton in Kabul for Karzai's inauguration | The AfPak Channel

Informed Comment: Pakistani Military Takes Taliban Strongholds; Maulana Fazlullah Surfaces in Afghanistan

The Nation: American People's Money used to Sponsor Taliban • videosift.com

Daily brief: U.S. ambassador to Kabul cautions against more troops | The AfPak Channel

An articulate plan for security | The AfPak Channel

More talking, not more troops | The AfPak Channel

AfPak experts advise Obama | The AfPak Channel

Matthew Yglesias » Taliban and al-Qaeda

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