War Glance
As the last U.S. combat troops prepare to leave Iraq this month, the State Department is struggling to implement an expanded mission that it has belatedly realized it might not be able to afford.
Beginning in September, the State Department will take over all police training in Iraq from coalition military forces, and it has proposed replacing its current 16 provincial reconstruction teams spread across the country with five consular offices outside Baghdad.
State Dept. faces skyrocketing costs as it prepares to expand role in Iraq
U.S. Supersizes Afghan Mega-Air Force Base as Withdrawal Date Looms
Anyone who thinks the United States is really going to withdraw from Afghanistan in July 2011 needs to come to this giant air base an hour away from Kabul. There’s construction everywhere. It’s exactly what you wouldn’t expect from a transient presence.
Step off a C-17 cargo plane, as I did very early Friday morning, and you see a flight line packed with planes. When I was last here two years ago, helicopters crowded the runways and fixed-wing aircraft were –- well, if not rare, still a notable sight. Today you’ve got C-17s, Predators, F-16s, F-15s, MC-12 passenger planes … I didn’t see any of the C-130 cargo craft, but they’re here somewhere.
A Collapsing Policy in Afghanistan
Mr. Goldstein argues that it’s clear the counterinsurgency and population-protection policy, as set out in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s manifesto last summer, is failing, reminiscent of the grandiose plans Mr. Bundy promulgated in Vietnam in the 1960s.
There is emerging a consensus that the policy is heading south. This consensus includes the more than 100 House Democrats who voted against war funding last month, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, a growing number of foreign policy elites outside the Obama administration and the president of Pakistan.
Between the Bomb and the Burqa
An internal Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document released by WikiLeaks in March reveals a secret plan to use the plight of Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to "leverage French (and other European) guilt" during an especially bloody summer of military escalation. The confidential document was prepared by the Red Cell, a secretive group that consults the US intelligence community.
In response to the news that Dutch forces would soon withdraw from Afghanistan, the Red Cell outlined a plan to use Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to ensure that more NATO allies would not succumb to public pressure and follow suit.
Iraq forces take over from last U.S. combat brigade
The United States handed over control of all combat duties to Iraqi security forces on Saturday in a further sign its withdrawal is on track despite a political impasse in Iraq and a recent rise in violence.
President Barack Obama said last Monday he would stick to his promise to end U.S. combat operations in Iraq by August 31, with security being left in the hands of Iraq's own U.S.-trained army and police.
Germany Gave Names to Secret US Taliban Hit List
The Afghanistan war logs obtained by WikiLeaks revealed the existence of Task Force 373, a secret US unit assigned with eliminating Taliban leaders. Now SPIEGEL has learned that the German government provided names to the hit list used by the unit. At least one of the men is now dead
Thanks to the WikiLeaks revelations, war-weary Germany now knows that German officials added names to the JPEL at least 13 times.
Afghanistan: The unsustainable in pursuit of the unbeatable
It is, especially for the Afghan people, a war without end, and one to add to their history of other fruitless conflicts. An Independent on Sunday assessment, using records kept by Professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire and the UN, puts the civilians killed as a direct result of the war since 2001 at 13,746.
Last year, the toll of those who died directly or indirectly was estimated by another US academic to be as high as 32,000.
More Articles...
Page 48 of 113
