Shattered Calm — An Afghan government delegation came under fire by Taliban militants in the early hours of Tuesday as they visited the village where a U.S. soldier is accused of killing 16 civilians. The Washington Post …
Taliban
Must Reads from Around the World: Feb. 2, 2012
Taliban Update – The New York Times follows up on findings in a NATO report, “State of the Taliban 2012” – based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 insurgents in Afghanistan – showing resilient fighters “convinced that they …
Sarkozy Unexpectedly Calls Earlier French Troop Exit From Afghanistan
So it turns out France is indeed leaving Afghanistan earlier than planned, and will seek to bring the last of its current 3,900 troops home by the end of 2013. Despite signs earlier in the week from French government officials …
Global Briefing, Jan. 23 2012: Syria, Sendai and Sarkozy
Juvenile Injustice — The Guardian examines accusations that Israel’s military justice system mistreats Palestinian children. The special report, based on interviews and affidavits given by minors to an international human …
Sarkozy Considers Withdrawal from Afghanistan After Death of French Soldiers
Is the outraged French response to the shooting death of four of its forces in Afghanistan by a suspected Afghan soldier Friday a sign that Paris may speed the pull out of its troops from the NATO-led operation? Or is the …
Bombs Explode in Afghanistan, While Seats Go Empty in Bonn
When Afghan President Hamid Karzai, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with some 100 high-level Afghan and International delegations, met in Bonn for a conference on Afghanistan’s …
The Bonn Conference: Can Afghanistan Be Saved Without Pakistan On Board?
It’s rarely a good sign these days when a summit gets referenced by the city that hosts it: Kyoto is now synonymous with the international community’s failures dealing with climate change; Oslo has become another watchword for …
U.S. Iraq Withdrawal a Gift to Iran? No, the U.S. Iraq Invasion Was the Gift to Iran
Outlandish posturing on foreign policy matters is par for the course in a U.S. electoral season, but the claim that President Barack Obama will deliver Iraq on a plate to Iran by honoring the U.S. treaty obligation to withdraw American troops by New Year’s Day is worth closer scrutiny. It might be said that Obama’s critics, many of whom …
With All Eyes on Apple, It’s Easy to Forget Afghanistan
Every day, Mother Jones, an American magazine, publishes a photograph from a war zone or military base. The pictures, taken in places like Ramadi, Iraq, or Kabul, Afghanistan, are labeled with the date, the location and a bracing tagline: “We’re still at war.” Indeed, today marks 10 years since the beginning of the U.S.-led war in …
Should the U.S. Deem Pakistan a State Sponsor of Terrorism?
It seems not a week goes by without more accusations heaped upon Pakistan’s controversial military intelligence agency, the ISI. The shadowy agency, seen by many as an enabler and tacit ally of militant extremists and terrorist groups in South Asia, had just been in headlines following a Taliban assault on the U.S. embassy and …
The Endgame in Afghanistan: How Do We End the Proxy Wars?
When top U.S. military officer Adm. Mike Mullen described the Haqqani Network as a “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [spy] agency,” to the U.S. Senate on Thursday you could almost hear the ‘I told you so’ chorus echoing all the way from Afghanistan. Mullen accused the ISI of fighting a proxy war in …
The Afghan Government Needs Reconciliation with Its People, Not with the Taliban
For the past several months, reconciliation with the Taliban has emerged as a key pillar of the American exit strategy. A political end to the insurgency, combined with a strengthened Afghan security force, better governance and enhanced economic structures were supposed to pave the way towards the dignified withdrawal that is …
With Forceful Messaging, Can the U.S. Alienate the Taliban?
When militants serving the Haqqani Network attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul in 2008, killing 54, it took several months for suspicions to leak out that the group may have been behind the attack. Not so with last week’s commando-style assault on the U.S. Embassy and other sites in the capital. Within hours Afghan officials were …
