Flopping Aces » Afghanistan

Fred Thompson: Afghan war ‘has been lost’

Scott — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:55:45 +0000

“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

He’s probably right

CNN Biased Poll Reporting…54% Approve Of Obama But Numbers Decline On Almost All Issues

Curt — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:13:12 +0000

No bias in the reporting of this new poll eh?

They fail to report on some pretty significant drops in the poll….drops that if it had been swung the other way would of been in big bold letters:

Fifty-four percent of respondents to the latest CNN poll disapprove of Barack Obama’s performance on the economy, a 17-point swing in six weeks. That isn’t the worst of the poll, either; 57% now disapprove of Obama’s performance on health care, a 19-point swing in that same time.

~~~

a 17-point reversal on the economy and a 19-point reversal on health care would be, well, news. One has to wonder why neither get mentioned in a report on the popularity of a president whose central issues are health care and the economy. The rapid disintegration of his popularity on these positions will have enormous implications for Obama’s ability to push his agenda through Congress in both arenas, and also on the midterm elections a year from now if this becomes a trend.

In fact, it’s hard to find an issue where Obama has not lost ground:

Economy – 46%/54%, was 54%/45%

Foreign affairs – 51%/47%, was 58%/38%

Health care – 42%/57%, was 51%/47%

Afghanistan – 42%/56%, was 49%/46%

Taxes – 49%/50%, was 52%/42%

Helping the middle class – 50%/49%, was 67%/32% (six months ago, last time question asked)

His numbers stayed roughly the same on Medicare, with just a rounding difference. Otherwise, Obama has lost serious ground on every issue, mainly over the last six weeks.

17 point and a 19 point swing into the disapproval area and nary a peep in the article. Ed also notes they fail to note the party identification numbers. Quite telling.

Another quite telling note about the poll. His approval rating on nearly every issue has declined but he is still approved of by 54% as a whole?

Bradley effect?

Obama Waffles Some More On Afghanistan & Rush Nails Him

Curt — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:12:04 +0000

Rush said earlier that he doesn’t believe Obama really cares what happens in Afghanistan…only what the war can do for him, and now the dithering liberal is dithering some more. 10 months wasn’t enough you see:

Axelrod said Obama would announce a war strategy “within weeks.” A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press that Obama has still not yet decided what to do, and it remains unclear whether he will decide before he goes to Asia on Nov. 11.

Here is what Rush said earlier and it’s dead on accurate:

WALLACE: Let’s talk about a couple of the big issues the president is dealing with now — first of all, Afghanistan. You suggest that he is taking all of this time to decide what to do in Afghanistan to keep his left-wing base on board for health care reform.

RUSH: Well, it’s partly that, but I also don’t think he cares much about it. I think once…

WALLACE: Well, come on.

RUSH: No, I — no, see, this is — I know this is going to sound controversial, but I don’t think he cares that — if he — Chris, if he cared about — we’ve got soldiers and their families worrying about what we’re going to do. The general on the ground said we need some more troops.

The policy that he implemented in March he now doesn’t like and is trying to figure out how best to make everybody happy here politically on his side of the aisle and also for his image. Democrats have a tendency to be seen as weak on defense, so he’s battling with that.

But again, if he cared about victory — remember, he said about Afghanistan victory is not something he’s comfortable with, the concept. It reminds him of the Japanese surrendering on the USS Missouri. It made him very uncomfortable.

He wants to manage this rather than achieve victory. He says these things. I don’t know if people actually listen and have them register when he does.

WALLACE: But you say you don’t know that he really cares. Do you at least give him credit for going to Dover, Delaware to honor the remains of soldiers, dead soldiers, who came back from Afghanistan?

RUSH: You know, see, the politically correct thing to say here would be, “Oh, yes, I am very impressed that President Obama decided to go show his concern for the remains, troops who’ve given their lives for freedom in this country.”

It was a photo op. It was a photo op precisely because he’s having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation. He found one family that would allow photos to be taken. None of the others did.

And of course, when you have a sycophantic media following you around, able to promote and amplify whatever you want, then he can create the impression that he has all this great concern, but the — Bush did this…

WALLACE: Well, no…

RUSH: … but no cameras.

WALLACE: I don’t know that he ever went to Dover, Delaware.

RUSH: No, he went to see the families.

WALLACE: Yes, he certainly went to see the families.

RUSH: But he didn’t make photo ops out of it. The…

WALLACE: Well, but the argument would be that it was political of Bush not to be seen with the coffins because he was trying to hide it, hide the cost of war from the American people.

RUSH: Well, I have the benefit of knowing George Bush a little bit, and I — I — I’ve seen him cry talking about missions that he’s ordered. I think he has a great, profound, deep respect for the families of all military personnel, and those who have died…

WALLACE: But I don’t disagree with that…

RUSH: … and I — he’s not going to use them.

WALLACE: But you don’t think that Barack Obama has a profound respect for our soldiers and the families that are giving the sacrifice?

RUSH: Chris, throughout the Iraq war, it was Barack Obama and the Democrat Party which actively sought the defeat of the U.S. military. They convened hearings and accused General Petraeus of lying. They said the surge would not work.

Harry Reid stands up, waves the white flag — this war is lost. Jack Murtha is out saying our Marines at Haditha are guilty of rape. John Kerry is accusing our Marines of committing terrorism acts by going into the homes of Iraqis at midnight in the dark terrorizing, looking for Al Qaida or whoever was there.

Yeah. I mean, look. I hate to be honest with you here, but I do question their commitment to national security. I question their commitment to the U.S. military. They’ll put their political survival and their political power being gained over anything else. They’ll use anybody and throw anybody away in order to achieve it.

Full interview of Rush with Chris Wallace below:

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Dithering Democrats Reaching Too Narrow, Too Slow

Wordsmith — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:40:15 +0000

This is the moment….when Senator John Kerry, who served in Vietnam and currently chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday that he opposes sending more troops unless conditions on the ground improve in Afghanistan. I’d say that’s the basic gist of it. I think James Dobbins states it very well:

James Dobbins, who served as a special envoy to Afghanistan during the Bush administration and is now at the Rand Corp., said that Kerry had made many “sensible” points in the speech but that he found the conclusion unsatisfactory.

“The argument seems to be that we’re not going to send more troops until we start winning — which seems to me to be an inversion of the usual sequence,” he said.

This is the moment….when on the same day, Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, gave an address at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville, in part to offer a statement on the 14 Americans who lost their lives in two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan.

“I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way. I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary,” Obama said to loud applause. “And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt.”

The problem I have with this, is that we already have troops in theater in “harm’s way”, in what he claimed as a “war of necessity”; and his top general whom he had chosen is requesting reinforcements. And the dithering Democrat appears to want to vote “present”.

This is the moment, when Senator John Kerry says NATO allies and the UN need to step up and do more to support the efforts in Afghanistan. I agree; and so does NATO, which is backing Gen. McChrystal’s request for the counterinsurgency approach and troop increase:

America’s NATO allies signaled broad support Friday for an ambitious counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, adding to the momentum building for a substantial U.S. troop increase.

NATO defense ministers meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, endorsed the strategy put forward by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and allied commander. The alliance rejected competing proposals to narrow the military mission to fighting the remnants of Al Qaeda.

This is the moment when Senator Kerry also said:

“Achieving our goals does not require us to build a flawless democracy, defeat the Taliban in every corner of the country, or create a modern economy-what we’re talking about is “good-enough” governance, basic sustainable economic development, and Afghan security forces capable enough that we can drawdown our forces,”

Can anyone say “duh”? Who has ever said we were attempting to build a western-style democracy that looks like our own? Or that we would spend blood and treasure on Afghanistan until its opium fields were magically transformed into pink daffodils, fuzzy bunnies, and cotton candy clouds floating overhead?

“given the balance of our strategic interests, it should give serious pause to military and civilian strategists alike that the current balance of our expenditure between Afghanistan, where there is virtually no Al Qaeda, and Pakistan, where there is, tallies thirty-to-one.”

Here’s failed presidential candidate John ” I served in Vietnam” Kerry, September 14, 2006 at Howard University:

The central front in the war on terror is still in Afghanistan, but this Administration treats it like a sideshow. When did denying al Qaeda a terrorist stronghold in Afghanistan stop being an urgent American priority? How did we end up with seven times more troops in Iraq – which even the Administration now admits had nothing to do with 9/11 – than in Afghanistan, where the killers still roam free? Why is the Administration sending thousands more American troops into the crossfire of a civil war in Iraq but we can’t find any more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan?

With Pakistan in the midst of cleaning out the hornets nest of Taliban fighters in southern Waziristan, I’d say now would be an ideal time for sending more troops to deny the Taliban any safe havens into Afghanistan and to send out a message that America is resolute in its commitment to see things through.

In regards to the claim of no al Qaeda in Afghanistan, after making big campaign issues out of Afghanistan as being “the good and necessary war” that we had to return to, there might be a minimal al Qaeda footprint there today; but should the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan, is there really any question that the Taliban today is inextricably linked to al Qaeda, and wouldn’t provide it safe haven and continued alliance?

While the Afghan Taliban share many of al-Qaida’s violent goals, including the defeat of the Kabul government, Barrett said, they are more regionally focused and do not hold the same global jihadist views.

Some U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, warn against underestimating the relationship between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban.

While the Taliban and al-Qaida may have differences, senior counterterrorism officials say that al-Qaida still has strong historical ties to Mullah Omar and that is not likely to go away. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Should we cut deals with irreconcilables?

President Barack Obama’s review of strategy in Afghanistan means America will end up making a deal with the Taliban, and tolerating warlords, to end the fighting.

“Moderate Taliban” is rather oxymoronic, isn’t it? And wasn’t it the moment of the third presidential debate in 2004 that John frickin’ Kerry said the following:

When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped.

So it wasn’t ok to do business with Afghan warlords then, but today it’s a practical solution?

The Taliban may not have their sights set on waging a global jihad war; but they are clearly one of those who “If they’re not with us, they’re with the terrorists”. An al Qaeda without safe haven is an al Qaeda made impotent.

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio also warn against the narrower approach that seeks to draw distinctions between al Qaeda and its allies:

if the US and its coalition partners prevent the Taliban and its allies from returning to power in Afghanistan, then this will necessarily weaken al Qaeda’s allies and, in turn, al Qaeda itself. In the military’s view, al Qaeda is not a standalone problem but instead one head of several on a jihadist hydra.

In the piece below, we take a look at the insurgency in Afghanistan more closely – from al Qaeda’s perspective. We do not think that a shift to a predominately counterterrorism campaign utilizing airstrikes and the like is sufficient to beat back the threat to America’s interests. In fact, we argue that such thinking is rooted in a dangerous ignorance of al Qaeda and our terrorist enemies. Al Qaeda was never a self-contained problem that could be defeated by neutralizing select individuals – even though capturing or killing senior al Qaeda members surely does substantially weaken the network.

Instead, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts deliberately fashioned their organization to be the tip of a much longer jihadist spear.

The previous administration has been criticized by the current one for “taking its eyes off the ball” and diverting resources to Iraq “which didn’t attack us” and failing to catch bin Laden.

The current administration can be criticized for reneging on its campaign warhawk stance in a desire to divert resources from Afghanistan to pursue funding and public support for its domestic agenda of “nation rebuilding”. Shoveling socialism down the throat of “that region of the world” that didn’t attack us and had nothing to do with 9/11. As Steve Schippert puts it:

Though I’ve been screaming this in my own mind for weeks and weeks, actually months, maybe I ahve not said it out loud enough. Because it has a 95% probability of accuracy, with a 5% chance pub pressuer can change Obama’s mind —

We will not see an Afghan Surge (TM) for one simple, yet critical, reason. Do you all recall, post-stimulus, the Obama budget forcasts that were eventually blown out of the water by both the CBO and reality? Do you remember whaere most of the budgetary “savings” came from?

That’s right, a draw down in Iraq. Merely shifting these resources in number and cost to Afghanistan will have an even more devastating impact on the already laughable Obama budget projections, and materialize right in the heat of 2010 election cycles. Deficit beyond imagination and so far off Obama forecasts as to appear wholly mindless. the 2010 elections would be an even hotter Hell to pay for Dems supporting the O nonsense.

This was the reality that I saw from the beginning: That Afghanistan will be starved of resources rather than fed them as Candidate Obama assured in his pledges to fight “the real war” in Afghanistan.

It is domestic budget – NOT intellectually considered counterinsurgency v. counterterrorism strategies – which will dictate how this White House conducts the war in Afghanistan.

The trick for them is how to sell not shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan as brilliance rather than the domestic policy trickery that it really is.

Our enemies can take heart: This President and his team have greater and more aggressive designs on the American society and its free market-based economy than on them, the jihadists who would slit our throats quite literally given opportunity.

And this budget elephant in the Situation Room is what makes me so angry when folks consider Biden/Levin/Kerry options as intellectually vetted counterterrorism alternatives.

Bull. Look at the budget. Someone go back to spring ‘09 and dig up the Iraq Drawdown accounting in O’s budget as the source for freed funds. Fighting the enemy in Afghanistan? It was bullshit on the campaign trail, and its bullshit now. Iraq Drawdown funds (created or saved) were never – EVER – accounted for as shifting to another theater of war, “real” or imagined. It was shifted to redistribution schemes here at home.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Please. Someone.

For John Kerry, the 2004 presidential candidate who served in Vietnam, he has taken all the wrong lessons he learned from that conflict, and is trying to apply them to this conflict. John Kerry’s Afghanistan plan is the same as his Vietnam plan.

For 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, Afghanistan is a diversion; a distraction. I don’t think there’s any question that Democrats would love nothing better than to return us back to the glory days when Overseas Contingency Operations were largely a law enforcement issue, and we suffered the drip, drip, drip of “small-scale” terror attacks.

This is the moment…

Also blogging:
Brutally Honest
The Radio Patriot

Democrats Attacking Obama and Each Other

Scott — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:26:29 +0000

That beeping sound you hear is your microwave telling you the popcorn is ready.

Healthcare for Christmas: Reid under pressure to slow down
-Turns out moderate Dems will not approve healthcare in Senate if there’s a public option

Whip count shows Democrats lack votes on ‘robust’ public option for healthcare
-Hmph…House Democrats don’t like the far left wingers public option either. Something about it being too expensive to give 300million people a min of $1mil in coverage ($30TRILLION). Who does math in Congress anymore anyways?

Abortion divides House Dems in health care debate
-Geesh, is there anything Democrats can agree on re healthcare? Oh yeah…it’s the Republicans fault somehow. That much they can agree on.

Two Democrats buck Rep. Towns, call for Countrywide probe
-Ask a Dem what caused the Great Recession, and they’ll tell you the DNC talking points (presented by NYT, DailyKOS, and MSNBC): Bush tax cuts for the wealthy investors and business leaders who create jobs, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ll ignore the entire Countrywide, homeloans, AIG mess, but….not all Dems will. They all know the reality, and some want it fixed.

Obama hints Afghan decision may wait
-At least on foreign policy the world loves us, right? Um, not so much. Seems the new strategy Obama started in March…in ain’t working. It’s been a few months since his generals in the field asked for more troops and equipment, and despite his promise to the VFW that he’d always provide…Obama’s still clueless on what to do/how to respond to the simplest question ever. Your general tells you he needs more troops and material or the war is lost. What do you do? You send the guy more troops and matl or you lose. Simple

Iran fails to accept UN uranium enrichment plan
-Damn, that open-hand opens a clenched fist thing sounded so cool too. Yeah, no one believed it for a second, but it sounded great….as great as all the other sizzle sans steak. Now what-just let Israel bomb Iran and start a regional or even world war? How will Keith Olbermann respond to a call for war in Iran based on alleged WMD threats and ties to terror? Will we get a countdown every night saying how many days it’s been since Obama threatened harsh sanctions? Please, stop laughing now people as even the Dems are frustrated w Obama’s incompetence here.

Dems face uphill climb on immigration reform
-Guess changing the subject from healthcare to foreign policy to immigration’s probably not a good idea

White House attacks worry moderate Democrats
-Man, you know you’re having a bad week when Democrats give you grief for complaining about FOX News!

The Dem eats Dem list goes on and on. Yeah, they’ll fill 24hrs on MSNBC w White House ordered distraction about how Republicans are to blame, but anyone who knows that the Dems have a supermajority and the WH and the House…those independent minds ain’t buying it. Dems are running the show, and Dems are fouling it up.

Have a GREAT weekend!

The Left Wingers 10 Great Unanswered Questions

Scott — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:43:03 +0000

Sure, left wingers can come up with talking points, and soundbites, but over the past few weeks I’ve noticed that there are 10 core questions that most on the far left cannot seem to answer with any substance. Pass em on, try em out, and enjoy the mindfreak.

If all the world hated America because of George W Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq….then why was America attacked on Sept 11, 2001; 2yrs before that invasion?
Why has Al Queda been trying to exterminate every American for the past 17yrs?
Did you want Bush to fail in Iraq, or did you want America to succeed?
Given that Osama left Afghanistan in 2001, and Al Queda was largely destroyed in Afghanistan in 2002, how did the Bush Administration “take its eye off the ball [Afghanistan] by invading Iraq” in 2003?
What caused the great recession of 2007?

How have Democrats ensured that we don’t have another $13 TRILLION dollar Great Recession?
If FOX, Hannity, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, etc are examples of right wing propaganda…then what is an example of left wing propaganda?
If Republicans lie, and all politicians are liars, then what are some lies told by Democrats?
Since President Obama’s Israel/Palestine talks have failed, and he’s been unable to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and since he’s completely clueless on what to do in Afghanistan…what is PLAN B for keeping Israel from bombing Iran and starting a regional-possibly a world war?
Obama’s a quarter of the way done with his presidency. What will history record as his greatest accomplishment?

btw, I could come up with more, but these were my top 10. Anyone who thinks they have one that deserves being on the list, please, please, please feel free to suggest it. I probably won’t add it out of sheer laziness, but I think we’d all love to see em.

Former V.P. Cheney Offers Critical Review of Obama National Security Policy

Mike's America — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:04:31 +0000

And he answers the “blame Bush” theme still so prevalent in the Obama Administration!

On CNN’s State of the Union program on Sunday (transcript), White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was questioned about the Obama Administration’s indeciviseness in Afghanistan. Attempting to change the subject, Rahm fell back on the standard “blame Bush” defense suggesting that Afghanistan was just another mess that they had to clean up.

You have literally got into a situation, is there another way you can do this? And the president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side, and the strategic side. What is the impact on the region? What can the Afghan government do or not do? Where are we on the police training? Who would be better doing the police training? Could that be something the Europeans do? Should we take the military side? Those are the questions that have not been asked. And before you commit troops, which is — not irreversible, but puts you down a certain path — before you make that decision, there’s a set of questions that have to have answers that have never been asked. And it’s clear after eight years of war, that’s basically starting from the beginning, and those questions never got asked.

And what I find interesting and just intriguing from this debate in Washington, is that a lot of people who all of a sudden say, this is now the epicenter of the war on terror, you must do this now, immediately approve what the general said — where, before, it never even got on the radar screen for them. That — everything was always about Iraq.

Amazing. As if no one will realize what a pack of lies that is.

Well, Dick Cheney realized it and in an address to the Center for Security Policy on Wednesday Cheney responded (transcript) (video of entire speech):

CHENEY: Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it.

Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.

Cheney also decried what he called a “drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan” in this speech which deserves to be read in it’s entirety. He covered the issue of Obama’s pullback from our Polish and Czech allies and missile defense as well as Iran, Iraq and terrorist interrogations.

His closing remarks offer a stinging rebuke to an inexperienced Obama from the man whose career highlights include not only Vice President, but Secretary of Defense and White House Chief of Staff:

There are policy differences, and then there are affronts that have to be answered every time without equivocation, and this is one of them. We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.

We cannot hope to win a war by talking down our country and those who do its hardest work – the men and women of our military and intelligence services. They are, after all, the true keepers of the flame.

This speech is yet another reminder from Dick Cheney about what it was like when adults were in charge!

UPDATED: NY Times reporting “frustration” within military ranks??

MataHarley — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:43:14 +0000

I’m not sure what the bigger story is here… that the troops are feeling less than confident in their new Commander in Chief, or that this story is being reported in the New York Times.

But here it is… yesterday’s byline by Elisabeth Bumiller under the Military Memo, As the Commander in Chief Deliberates, Frustration Builds Within the Ranks

A number of active duty and retired senior officers say there is concern that the president is moving too slowly, is revisiting a war strategy he announced in March and is unduly influenced by political advisers in the Situation Room.

“The thunderstorm is there and it’s kind of brewing and it’s unstable and the lightning hasn’t struck, and hopefully it won’t,” said Nathaniel C. Fick, a former Marine Corps infantry officer who briefed Mr. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and is now the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington. “I think it can probably be contained and avoided, but people are aware of the volatile brew.”

Last week the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., gave voice to the concerns of those in the military when he issued a terse statement criticizing Mr. Obama’s review of Afghan war strategy.

“The extremists are sensing weakness and indecision within the U.S. government, which plays into their hands,” said Mr. Tradewell’s statement on behalf of his group, which represents 1.5 million former soldiers.

~~~

A retired general who served in Iraq said that the military had listened, “perhaps naïvely,” to Mr. Obama’s campaign promises that the Afghan war was critical. “What’s changed, and are we having the rug pulled out from under us?” he asked. Like many of those interviewed for this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from the military’s civilian leadership and the White House.

Yes… Nero is fiddling while Rome burns. Instead, the POTUS uses the excuse of the recent Afghanistan election and accusations of corruption. Funny… that didn’t mean much when Iran had it’s election, and Ahmadinejad’s military might was killing protestors in the streets.

But since Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah have a runoff election scheduled, it would seem that excuse gets flushed down the toilet.

Or is the CIC now fiddling, waiting to see the outcome? Which then begs the question, is the US support for Afghanistan contingent upon who the population elects?

UPDATED: As Obama’s advisors seem to whisper “tread lightly” in the POTUS famous ears, his own Sec’y of Defense seems to have adopted US’s NATO head General Stanley McCrystal’s method of pressure… that of taking the case to the public via the media. The NYT’s Thom Shanker published his article today, Gates Says Afghan Vote Will Not Slow Strategy.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that prolonged challenges to the political legitimacy of the government in Afghanistan should not halt the administration’s efforts to decide on a new strategy nor would it slow allied military operations there.

Speaking before meetings with senior Japanese officials, Mr. Gates warned that the anticipated runoff election and questions of installing a new, credible government in Kabul would be a lengthy process. During that time, administration discussions on strategy — and whether to send more troops — would not go into suspended animation, he said.

~~~

“We are not going to just sit on our hands waiting for the outcome of this election and for the emergence of a government in Kabul,” Mr. Gates said. “We have operations under way and we will continue to conduct those operations.”

Mr. Gates, in assessing the impact on administration policy of strong charges of election fraud by supporters of President Hamid Karzai, noted that “whatever emerges in Kabul is going to be an evolutionary process.”

“It is not going to be complicated one day and simple the next,” he said. “I believe the president will have to make his decisions in the context of that evolutionary process.”

This is a completely different story than was conveyed by Rahm’bo Emanuel on the various talking head Sunday news shows. Emanuel characterizes the Obama decision stuttering as avoiding appearing “reckless” without [even more] analysis. In other words, they believe they need a *new* new strategy, deftly dodging their silent acknowledgement of their March strategy’s lack of success…. with Emanuel going so far as to classify it as the US “starting from scratch”.

Additionally, Emanuel places emphasis on the election and it’s outcome.

On Sunday, Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, said in television interviews that the administration must first ensure it has a “credible” partner in the Afghan government before making a decision to send more troops.

Considering the candidates are well known to the admin, one has to wonder why either one, as leaders, wouldn’t meet their standards as a “credible” partner.

Such a disconnect…. END UPDATE

~~~

Perhaps the most eyebrow raising moment in the article is the lengths the WH mouthpieces will go to defend Obama’s indecision on his own “new strategy” for Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama’s civilian advisers on national security say the president is appropriately reviewing his policy options from all sides. They said it would be reckless to rush a decision on whether to send as many as 40,000 more American men and women to war, particularly when the unresolved Afghan election had left the United States without a clear partner in Kabul.

~~~

The administration has made clear that Mr. Obama will not necessarily follow the advice of his generals in the same way Mr. Bush did, notably in the former president’s deference to Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the head of the Central Command, and that it does not want military leaders publicly pressing the commander in chief as they give their advice.

Well now, that’s interesting. Especially when you consider Obama’s own Organizing for America website has a page dedicated to how many times candidate Obama had consistently said he’d “listen to commanders on the ground”.

But that was then. This is now, and he’s already achieved the power he sought.

Obama may find that the military leadership, who may have remained quiet on disagreements with the prior administration, is not apt to be so acquiescing with the current admin.

Andrew M. Exum, a former Army officer in Afghanistan, an adviser to General McChrystal and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said that the change in style from one administration to the next had led to some of the military’s discontent. “The Bush administration would settle on a strategy and stick to it, and you could argue often to ill effect,” he said, referring to the president’s decision not to send more troops to Iraq until 2007, after years of rising violence.

The Obama administration, he said, is not afraid to go back and question assumptions. “There’s a value in that,” Mr. Exum said, “but that can be incredibly frustrating for those trying to operationalize the strategy.”

Part of the strain comes from lessons learned from the generals who acquiesced to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s demands for a small invasion force in Iraq, then faced criticism that they had not spoken up for more troops to secure the country during the occupation.

The retired general who served in Iraq said that today’s senior officers had decided, “I won’t be so quiet, I won’t be a lap dog.”

In the meantime, the commanders focus their concern for the troops on the ground and their safety. Those risking life and limb, trying to do too much with too little.

Another source of tension within the military is the view that a delay is endangering the 68,000 American troops now in Afghanistan. “McChrystal has troops out there who are risking their lives more than they need to, partly because we have not filled in the gaps and we have not created a safe zone in southern and eastern Afghanistan,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution.

A military policy analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing senior Pentagon leaders, said that “the military lives in a very rarefied environment,” and that “they are not out there every day having to meet citizens who say, ‘What the hell are we doing?’ ”

Senior military officers, the analyst said, “are smart guys, but they do not have the daily pulse of the American public in their face. They tend to interpret politicians who give voice to it as being weak, but none of this works if the public gives up on it.”

This all brings up memories of red phones and battles between then candidate Hillary Clinton and the eventual chosen one.

[Clinton campaign ad:] “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” says the narrator in her commercial, while ominous music surges over dark black-and-white images. An undefined world crisis is brewing, and the red phone — a relic of the hot line to Moscow during the cold war — rings.

“Your vote will decide who answers that call,” the narrator says. “Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military — someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.”

Candidate Obama’s response?

“In fact, we have had a red phone moment,” he said. “It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer, George Bush gave the wrong answer, John McCain gave the wrong answer,” voting to authorize force in Iraq.

The phone rang, and at least *someone* answered, Mr. Obama. Maybe one of your stellar czars and high paid advisors might want to let you know that red phone has been ringing… without an answer… for quite some time now.

Caption This

Wordsmith — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:08:55 +0000

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (R) speaks to U.S. Senator John Kerry during a news conference in Kabul October 20, 2009. Karzai must face an election run-off against his main rival on November 7, officials said on Tuesday, to resolve a disputed first round that plunged the country into months of political uncertainty. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (AFGHANISTAN ELECTIONS POLITICS)

Taliban’s Pre-emptive Counter-Offensive in Pakistan

Wordsmith — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:24:56 +0000

A member of the Pakistani Taliban offers prayer as his his gun lies in front him at a mosque in the Buner district, northwest of Islamabad, April 23, 2009.
REUTERS/Stringer

While the Pakistan military is reportedly gathering itself into launching a major (counter)offensive, causing thousands to flee Waziristan, the Taliban continues to take the fight to the Pakistan government:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Militants dressed in police uniforms simultaneously attacked three law enforcement agencies in Lahore on Thursday morning, the fifth major attack in Pakistan in the last 10 days.

The government, of course, is handicapped by an infestation of Islamist sympathizers and anti-Americans within the Pakistan military itself:

officials said Pakistan was handicapped in fighting the onslaught because of discord between the civilian government and the military that spilled into the open in the last week, particularly over American aid legislation that the army said represented a violation of sovereignty. [wordsmith link insertions- also re: Mike's America]

“We cannot fight the Taliban when the army and the government are at loggerheads,” said Jahangir Tareen, a member of Parliament from Punjab and a former federal minister.

The best defense is a strong offense, and thus far, the Pakistan Taliban with their al Qaeda allies have made the government appear impotent and weak (appearances are sometimes NOT deceiving). How can Pakistanis feel confidence in their government’s ability to protect them when the government and the military can’t even protect themselves?

By exposing the weak links in the country’s security apparatus and complacency among top officials, the Thursday’s attacks again risked undermining the faith of ordinary Pakistanis in the military, the police and the intelligence agencies, said a retired army brigadier, Javaid Hussain.

The frequency of the assaults, Mr. Hussain said, also demonstrated that the new Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, remained aligned closely to Al Qaeda and was receiving technical training, planning and support for the attacks from the terrorist organization. They furthermore showed how the Taliban was working in tandem with the cells and supporters among jihadist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, based in southern Punjab, Brig. Hussain said.

Our own president’s dithering over what to do in Afghanistan affects how Pakistan may handle their Taliban problem:

In an interview at the Journal’s offices this week in New York, Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi minced no words about the impact of a U.S. withdrawal before the Taliban is defeated. “This will be disastrous,” he said. “You will lose credibility. . . . Who is going to trust you again?” As for Washington’s latest public bout of ambivalence about the war, he added that “the fact that this is being debated—whether to stay or not stay—what sort of signal is that sending?”

Mr. Qureshi also sounded incredulous that the U.S. might walk away from a struggle in which it has already invested so much: “If you go in, why are you going out without getting the job done? Why did you send so many billion of dollars and lose so many lives? And why did we ally with you?” All fair questions, and all so far unanswered by the Obama Administration.

As for the consequences to Pakistan of an American withdrawal, the foreign minister noted that “we will be the immediate effectees of your policy.” Among the effects he predicts are “more misery,” “more suicide bombings,” and a dramatic loss of confidence in the economy, presumably as investors fear that an emboldened Taliban, no longer pressed by coalition forces in Afghanistan, would soon turn its sights again on Islamabad.

Should Pakistan perceive that America will go the way of the paper tiger, why shouldn’t they appease the Islamists, much as Saudi Arabia had done, much as Saddam Hussein had done?

For decades Islamabad has viewed and used terrorist groups as assets to be cultivated. Before the Soviet invasion, Pakistan used Islamist militants for operations in India and Afghanistan. Today, Pakistan aids the Afghan Taliban mainly in the belief that if U.S. and international commitment to Afghanistan wanes, it would be better to be friendly with a group like the Taliban that can keep Indian influence in the country at bay—the same logic behind Pakistan’s pre-2001 support for the Taliban.

Pakistan has long been a conflicted ally and a breeding ground/safe haven for Islamists and Islamic terrorists.

While the Taliban takes decisive, pre-emptive action….Islamabad dithers indecisively.

Sound familiar?

When will the new offensive arrive? How many more homicide bombings and pre-emptive attacks, until then?

Give War a Chance

Wordsmith — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:48:05 +0000

A defused mortar head is planted during a mine and unexploded ordnances awareness class for school boys in Qarabagh district about 40 km (25 miles) north of Kabul November 20, 2007.
REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

David Quigg at Huffington Post (hat tip Patterico and Missy):

It fundamentally harms the long-term cause of global peace if America permits itself to move through history in a remorseless, irresponsible cycle wherein a Bush-type leader launches reckless wars and an Obama-type leader yanks our troops out. No matter how much we want our troops home, it is immoral to throw a country into chaos and then walk away simply because we grow weary of that chaos.

Counterinsurgency — the broad, innovative, flexible portfolio of tactics aimed at keeping civilians safe and earning their trust and cooperation — offers the best hope I’ve seen for attempting to make things right in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, foreign fighters, emboldened by America’s self-doubt and leadership dithering, are pouring into Afghanistan with a surge of their own, to push the perceived Taliban momentum. By ratcheting up the violence, they hope to influence Washington and American public perception to their favor.

Some Details on the Afghan “Tet” in Nuristan

Wordsmith — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:19:00 +0000

U.S. Army Spc. Zackery Cely provides security from a tower at Forward Operating Base Lane in the Zabul province of Afghanistan Oct. 5, 2009. Cely is from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment. (DoD photo by Spc. Tia P. Sokimson, U.S. Army)

Last weekend, two military outposts came under siege, resulting in the deaths of 8 U.S. soldiers, 7 Afghan soldiers.

The U.S. military destroyed both Camp Keating and Camp Fritsche 4 days later (56 soldiers who evacuated from there apparently lost everything except the clothes on their backs), giving the Taliban a victory claim (nevermind their loss of 100 Taliban fighters in the same battle), along with the symbolic raising of their flag in the region.

Part of General McChrystal’s plan, however, is the withdrawal of U.S. forces from such remote outposts to concentrate upon population centers where the people are the prize. A counterterrorism campaign as opposed to counterinsurgency, runs the risk of alienating the Afghan people back into the abusive arms of the Taliban:

Another Taliban member says they benefited from American violence and the abuses of the Kabul government:

The Afghan Taliban were weak and disorganized. But slowly the situation began to change. American operations that harassed villagers, bombings that killed civilians, and Karzai’s corrupt police were alienating villagers and turning them in our favor. Soon we didn’t have to hide so much on our raids. We came openly. When they saw us, villagers started preparing green tea and food for us. The tables were turning. Karzai’s police and officials mostly hid in their district compounds like prisoners.

So the Taliban’s loss of 100 militants to take over outposts we were going to be leaving anyway, is a great victory only in their brain-addled minds.

Thomas Ricks posts an account- the most detailed one we have thus far- by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey of last weekend’s battle in Nuristan:

Here are the facts, without revealing sensitive information. I feel compelled to write this because I heard some very fine, brave Americans foght for their very lives Saturday, 03 OCT 09. They fought magnificently.

Eight of them made the Ultimate Sacrifice. I don’t know their names, only their call signs. Though it may have been smaller in scale, and shorter in duration, their battle was no less heroic than the exploits of their ancestors, in places like LZ Xray or Fire Base Ripcord in Vietnam. I want people to know that there are still some GREAT Americans who serve in the US Army, fighting for Freedom, who will probably never be given the due they deserve. I don’t know ALL the facts, only what I overheard on the satellite radio.

COP Keating was (past tense) located on low ground, near a river, surrounded by mountains – a poor place to have to defend to begin with. The village of Kamdesh was nearby, as was a mosque. About two platoons and a cavalry troop headquarters occupied the COP – Combat Outpost. If you Google COP Keating, you will find a Washington Times article describing the austere conditions there, written earlier this year. I was on duty from 0600-1800 (6 a.m. until 6 p.m.) on Saturday, 03 OCT 09, and heard, first-hand, the events I am about to recount transpire. I took notes as the battle unfolded.

Things were relatively quiet when I came on shift at 0600. Not too long afterward, I heard a call sign describing taking small arms fire at his position. (That in itself is not alarming – I hear that frequently because I hear satellite radio transmissions from all sorts of units who operate in Nangahar, Kunar, Laghman (where I am) and in Nuristan Provinces, where this happened.) The situation, then began to deteriorate. The Troop Commander – urgently – requested rotary wing gunships to support him. He was told they were 45 minutes away, and that he should use his 120 mm mortars. He replied that the mortar pit was pinned down, and that the could not employ his 120 mm mortars. I did not know until I saw an aerial photo later that day, after I got off shift, that the COP was located in a “bowl,” surrounded on nearly all sides by high ground. The insurgents were shooting down into the mortar pit from above. The 120 mm mortars from OP Fritshe, a few kilometers away were able to help a little, but it was not enough. Not too long after the fight started, the Troop Commander said that he had a KIA, and several wounded.

Uh-Oh – now this is getting serious. Not too much longer after that, the Troop Commander, in a voice that was not panic’d, but which had a sense of urgency said, “We’ve got people inside our wire!!!” He said that he had lost communications with some of his elements at different places on the COP. He had had to abandon his Tactical Operations Center (TOC) and all the various means of redundant communications there (MIRC Chat, Blue Force Tracker, tactical FM radios, etc.) His only means of communication was the satellite radio he was using. He said he urgently needed air support. The number of KIA began to climb.

He kept asking about the helicopters – his higher headquarters said they were “30 minutes out…” He said that if he did not get help soon, they were going to be overrun. He had consolidated the Soldiers he had, to include dead and wounded, in a tight perimeter on part of his COP. He advised that the Afghan National Army (ANA) side of the COP was completely overrun and was on fire. The insurgents had gotten into his perimeter where the ANA latrine bordered his perimeter, after they had overrun the ANA camp. His Entry Control Point (ECP) where some Afghan Security Guards (ASG) had been had been overrun.

The ANP Police Checkpoint had been overrun and he was taking a heavy volume of fire from that. He was taking a lot of RPG fire from the mosque. His Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) was under insurgent control. He kept asking about the helicopters.He was told, “Passing Checkpoint 12…” He said, “I’m telling you that if they don’t get here f***in’ soon, we’re all going to f***in’ die!!!” Shortly after that, his Squadron Commander came up on the radio and told him that he was going to be OK, that help was on the way. The SCO said that he needed to come up on FM and talk to the helicopters, who should be ariving very soon. The Troop Commander said that the Harris was all he had at the moment, and asked that the Squadron relay. It was, obviously, a very anxious time. I was afraid that at any moment, the Troop commander would just stop transmitting, and that would mean that they were likely all dead and dying. Someone asked the Troop commander what his target priorities were, and he said that “anything outside the wire” was controlled by bad guys. He mentioned that he needed gun runs at a particular wall, and mentioned certain Target Reference Points (TRP’s) such as “the putting green” and “the diving board.” Finally, the helicopters arrived and began killing insurgents. It became clear, however, that it was such a target-rich environment that much more air support was needed. The helicopters gave the defenders enough breathing room to better position themselves, reload, etc. Under the umbrella of the gunships, the Troop Commander said that he was going to try to re-take some of his camp. The SCO calmly encouraged him to “fire and maneuver.” As they regained some lost ground, the Troop Commander said that he was finding some of his unaccounted for Soldiers, and that they were KIA. He gave their battle roster numbers. Things were looking better, but it was still a fierce fight. I could hear a cacophony of machine gun fire when the Troop Commander keyed that microphone to talk. The mortars were still pinned won, with one KIA and wounded in the mortar pit. After only a short time, gunships had to leave to rearm and refuel, heading to FOB Bostic. (FOB Bostic was hit with indirect fire, also, throughout the day.) The weather in the high passes interfered with the helicopters. Close Air Support in the form of jets were on the way, and the Troop Commander was asked to provide Target Numbers, which he did. He was still being pressed on all sides, still taking a heavy volume of small arms fire and RPG’s. He had regained some buildings, but had not been able to re-capture all his perimeter. He found at least one MBITR and was able to communicate with aircraft a little better.

Once the jets arrived overhead, they began to drop bombs on the masses, the swarms of insurgents. Usually, the insurgents conduct a raid at dawn, do their damage, and flee. Not this day. I looked at my watch, and it was after 1000 and the insurgents were still attacking, even though it should have become clear to them after the close air arrived that they could no longer hope to completely overrun the camp. The Close Air was on station continuously after that, and as soon as one plane dropped its bombs and strafed, another came down to hit targets – some very close to camp. The mosque was hit by a Hellfire, and open source now reports that a high profile insurgent named Dost Mohammad was killed there. A target described as a “switchback” was bombed repeatedly and the insurgents seemed to simply re-occupy it only to be bombed out of it again. (Several pieces of weapons and equipment has since been found there.) The “North Face” was also repeatedly bombed and strafed.

A plan was developed to get reinforcements to COP Keating. Because it was still “too hot” to land helicopters, they were flown to OP Fritshe and had to walk to COP Keating. Asked about his ammunition (Class 5) at about 1300, the Troop commander said that he was “red” on 7.62 link and MK19 ammunition. Not too long after that, he stated that he was “black” (supply exhausted) on 7.62, but still had a lot of .50 caliber. More KIA were found, and the Troop Commander said that they were missing their sensitive items (weapons, night vision, MBITR radios – things like that.) The KIA number rose to 5. There were constant updates on a particular wounded Soldier who had a broken leg and a crushed pelvis. They said that he had lost a lot of blood, but was on an IV, and was “hanging in there.” The Troop Commander said that he had two ANA KIA, and several wounded, still with him. He said that a lot of the ANA – about 12 – had broken and run when the COP began to be overrun. (Some of their bodies were found nearby the next day, along with some ASG who were wounded.) The Troop Commander said that the insurgents had made off with the ANA’s B-10 Rocket Launcher. Throughout the day, the air support targeted a B-10 launch site, but it was unclear if it was the same system that the ANA had lost of not.

The SCO got on the net and said that there was a plan to bring in a CH-47 Chinook as soon as it got dark, with attack helicopters overhead, and that they would bring in ammo and Soldiers and evacuate the wounded and dead. The SCO said that he would fly in, also. During the battle, the SCO always seemed calm and gave a lot of encouragement to the Troop Commander on the ground. He asked for updates (Situation Reports – “SITREPS”) but he did not nag the Troop Commander for it every 5 minutes. He let the Troop Commander fight the fight, frequently asking him what he needed and asking him how he and his Soldiers were doing, offering encouragement, but not micromanaging.

The fighting continued all day, even though it was not as intense as it had been in the early morning. As the relief column approached from OP Fritshe, it got into a brief fight, quickly killing two insurgents and capturing their ICOM radios and RPG’s. Then, they continued on toward COP Keating. The fire that had completely leveled the ANA side of the COP was spreading from building to building, and was setting the COP on fire. The Troop Commander and his Soldiers had to evacuate their TOC again, because it caught on fire.

Many of the barracks buildings caught on fire and burned, taking the Soldiers’ possessions with them. Only one or two buildings were left by the time it was over. As night approached, the Troop Commander told someone (S-3? FSO?) that if the air cover were lost, and if they were attacked again, they were “done.” The Troop Commander was assured that he would have adequate air support. The CSM came up on the net and asked the Troop Commander to try to expand his perimeter in order to try to get accountability of everyone. The Troop Commander said that he “just can’t do it, I just don’t have enough people. I have too many wounded.” The CSM said that he understood, but that he was looking at a cold body on the Predator feed near the maintenance building, and thought that that might be the final missing soldier. (It was later determined that that was not him.) The Troop Commander said that there were “a lot” of dead insurgents lying dead inside his perimeter, and he could be seeing one of those.

I went off shift at 1800. At that time, there were 6 US KIA, and one missing, later found and determined to be KIA. I do not know where the 8th KIA came from: either one of the wounded died, or earlier there was a mistake in regard to accountability.

The next day (Sunday, 4 OCT) when I came to work, I learned that they had found the unaccounted-for Soldier(s) and had made it through the night. During the late morning, the SCO came up on the net and briefed someone about the situation. He said that of five (5) HMMWV’s, only one was still running. They had counted eight (8) RPG impacts on one HMMWV alone. He said that the HMMWV’s were shot all to pieces. The camp Bobcat had a window shot out, but was still running, and they were still using it to move things.

There was a lot of UXO’s (unexploded ordnance) that made the area hazardous, such as unexploded US mortar rounds that had been scattered, as well as AT-4’s and Javelin’s. Most of the Soldiers on the COP had lost all their possessions except for what they were wearing. A plan was already being developed to get them new TA-50, uniforms, boots, toiletries, etc. once they were extracted. There were a lot of sensitive items that needed to be lifted out, because they are serial numbered items that needed to be accounted for, but most everything was ruined. They discussed whether to insert engineers with a lot of explosive to blow everything up, or whether to call in air strikes after everyone was evacuated and try to destroy what was left that way. Even at this point, they were still taking the occasional odd, angry shot or rocket fire. As I type this, I am still listening to the folks who are left at COP Keating, figuring out what to destroy, how best to destroy it (demo vs. aerial bombs or rockets) what to fly out, and making a plan on how best to get that done so they can abandon and close the COP.

U.S. marines fire during a Taliban ambush as they carry out an operation to clear an area in Helmand province, October 9, 2009.
REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih (AFGHANISTAN POLITICS MILITARY IMAGES OF THE DAY CONFLICT)

So who else was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

Wordsmith — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:01:05 +0000

An Afghan woman carries a girl while standing in line at a polling station in Herat, western Afghanistan, August 20, 2009.
REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize. Me and women who have inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.”
-President Obama, from his gracious (yes it was) Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech October 9, 2009

How about not feeling worthy of standing above those “transformative figures” who haven’t been honored by the peace prize? Who are the ones who stand in the shadow of “The One we’ve been waiting for”?

A record 205 nominations (72 individuals and 33 organizations) were made for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. And President Barack Hussein Obama beat them all. Notable among these? Dr. Sima Samar:

here in Afghanistan the big story is about the nominee who didn’t win the prize. That would be Dr. Sima Samar, an incredibly courageous Afghan woman who has risked her life for much of the past decade, treating women and girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dr. Samar is the chairwomen of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, a very influential organization in Kabul. She has won more awards from human rights organizations than I can list here, but you can see them for yourself on her Wiki page.

Dr. Samar was the first Hazara woman to obtain a medical degree from Kabul University, back in 1982. After a four-month residency at Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul, she was forced to flee for her life as Soviets and Mujahedeen fought bloody street battles in the capital. She returned to her home village of Jaghoori, where she began treating the sick in rural Afghanistan. Soon the Russians arrested her husband and, once again Dr. Samar fled, this time with her young son, to Pakistan. In Pakistan she founded a clinic to treat refugees of the war in Afghanistan and has since described the conditions in the refugee camps as “appalling.”

Dr. Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2002, where she assumed the post of Deputy President and later Minister of Women’s Affairs in the interim government of Hamid Karzai. She was forced to resign after making negative comments about sharia law and her life was constantly under threat. She is vocally opposed to the Burka, saying the the lack of sunlight on women’s skin causes Afghan women to have an unusually high instance of bone diseases.

Dr. Samar has likely saved the lives of countless women and girls who’s medical problems would otherwise have been ignored and their eventual deaths, unnoticed. Guess that’s not enough for the gang up in Oslo.

Better luck next year, Doc.

A schoolgirl sits in a classroom at Syed Pasha school, which was built by Canadian troops, near Kandahar Air Field September 8, 2009.
REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

In the face of threats to her own safety, Dr. Samar has defied the Taliban’s edicts that deny women and girls their basic rights to education, employment, mobility and medical care. Since 1989, Dr. Samar has been operating schools for girls and health clinics in many of the provinces of Afghanistan as well as in the refugee camps in Quetta, Pakistan. She has shown an incredible commitment towards assisting Afghan women in their struggles to end their oppression and to provide them with access to healthcare and education services. She is a strong advocate for the involvement of Afghan women in government and the reconstruction of civil society in Afghanistan.

Sima Samar was born in February 1957 in Ghazani, Afghanistan. As a child in school, she learned what it meant to be a minority in Pushtun-dominated Afghanistan. She is Hazara, one of the most persecuted of the ethnic minorities in Afghanistan that comprise some 17 percent of the population. Moreover, as a female in a conservative Muslim society, she was doubly second class. At 18, she married and began her medical education. She obtained her degree in medicine in February 1982 from Kabul University, the first Hazara woman to do so. Soon after came the Russian invasion, and as a doctor, she aided the anti-Soviet resistance movement, the mujahideen. When her husband was arrested in 1984, never to be seen again, Sima Samar and her young son fled to the safety of nearby Pakistan, where she worked as a doctor in a refugee camp in the small border town of Quetta. Thousands of refugees from war-ravaged Afghanistan lived there in appalling misery, particularly the women, who were forbidden to visit male doctors, venture from their homes to work or attend school.

With other women, Dr. Samar established her first hospital for women in 1987 and later in 1989 established the Shuhada Organization, a non-governmental and non-profit organization committed to the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan with special emphasis on the empowerment of women and children. Dr. Samar and her medical staff now run four hospitals and ten clinics in Afghanistan and another hospital in Quetta that provide much needed medical assistance and education for Afghan women and children. Worried about where the next generation of female physicians will come from, Dr. Samar also provides medical training courses at the hospitals she runs. She runs schools in rural Afghanistan for more than 20,000 students as well as a school for refugee girls in Quetta attended by over 1,000 girls. Her literacy programs are accompanied by distribution of food aid and information on hygiene and family planning. Services also include mobile health clinics and medical outreach workers who go door to door. Last year, the Taliban succeeded in closing two of her hospitals in Afghanistan but the others are still running.

Dr. Samar refuses to accept that women must be kept in purdah (secluded from the public) and speaks out against the wearing of the burqa (head-to-foot wrap), which was enforced by the Taliban. She also has drawn attention to the fact that many women in the area are suffering from osteomalacia, a softening of the bones, due to an inadequate diet. Wearing the burqa reduces exposure to sunlight and aggravates the situation for women suffering from osteomalacia.

Dr. Samar is also part of the international network Women Living Under Muslim Laws, which has links in 40 countries and a powerful voice at the United Nations. She received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1984.

And who is it that beat out this woman and 203 other nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize? Who is it that will be the clarion “call to action” for Americans? Whose personal story and commitment to appeasement is an inspiration for everyone around the world? Why, none other than our own illustrious, dear leader who, on the same day as his win, snubbed the 1989 peace prize recipient: Barack Hussein Obama.

Mmm….mmm….mm.

And we Americans better applaud the choice and be proud of our president’s win. We wouldn’t want to be called “unpatriotic” and accused of siding with the Taliban, now would we?

Hat tip for the story: CJ

Tickled Pink: The Moonbat Awakening

Wordsmith — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:34:13 +0000

Adiba, 17, of Kabul, showed her support for Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai at the bidding of her teacher as he met with women from the Malal group at his home in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 12, 2009. Although she planned to vote on Aug. 20, she had not decided which candidate would get her vote.
Nikki Kahn-THE WASHINGTON POST

This is indeed the dawning of the Age of Barack Hussein Obama….mmm…mmm….mm:

The anti-war group Code Pink, which rose to prominence with high-profile protests against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the past seven years, is softening its stance against the war in Afghanistan over concerns that a troop withdrawal could harm women’s rights in the country.

“We would leave with the same parameters of an exit strategy but we might perhaps be more flexible about a timeline,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told the Christian Science Monitor. “That’s where we have opened ourselves … to some other possibilities. We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban. So many people are saying that, ‘If the US troops left the country, would collapse. We’d go into civil war.’ A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider that.”

The apparent shift in policy comes in the wake of a week-long trip to Afghanistan by Code Pink members, where activists were surprised to find a lot of support among women’s rights activists for maintaining the US and NATO presence in the country.

They are just now awakening to this fact? Where were their brains at for the previous 8 years? Angelina Jolie “got it“, in regards to safeguarding Iraq on humanitarian grounds. Why couldn’t they?

Was opposition to the war all about political opposition to President Bush and not about promotion of peace and human rights (let alone democracy)?

Some observers have been pointing out for years that the Western troop presence in Afghanistan is the principal reason that women in the country are now able to get an education, and that there is now at least a modicum of gender equality in Afghanistan. Many observers fear that the withdrawal of troops could allow the return of severe discrepancies between women’s rights and men’s rights in Afghanistan, as well as widespread violence against women.

“In the current situation of terrorism, we cannot say troops should be withdrawn,” said Shinkai Karokhail, an Afghan member of Parliament and a women’s rights activist, at a meeting of international rights groups. “International troop presence here is a guarantee for my safety.”

Afghan girls attend a class at the Ishkashim high school for girls in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, near the border with Tajikistan, April 23, 2008.
REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

The New Way Forward: Shifting the Goal Posts?

Wordsmith — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:38:44 +0000

With talks of “exit strategy” and “narrower focus”, it’s like the nation with the greatest military on the planet is throwing in the white towel of surrender to these thuggish clowns:

Taliban fighters ride on their motor bikes in an undisclosed location in the south of Afghanistan May 13, 2008.
REUTERS/Stringer

From the AP by way of ALLAHPUNDIT:

Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said…

Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government — though there has been little receptiveness to this among the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…

Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary, the official said.

Should we be drawing a distinction between al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups? Between al Qaeda and the Taliban? ALLAHPUNDIT also links to an excellent piece by Thomas Joscelyn & BIll Roggio:

We do not think that a shift to a predominately counterterrorism campaign utilizing airstrikes and the like is sufficient to beat back the threat to America’s interests. In fact, we argue that such thinking is rooted in a dangerous ignorance of al Qaeda and our terrorist enemies. Al Qaeda was never a self-contained problem that could be defeated by neutralizing select individuals – even though capturing or killing senior al Qaeda members surely does substantially weaken the network.

Instead, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts deliberately fashioned their organization to be the tip of a much longer jihadist spear.

This was true during the years of the Soviet Jihad, when al Qaeda established a vast rolodex of like-minded jihadist leaders who, despite what were sometimes deep differences of opinion over tactical issues, could nonetheless be called upon as allies. It was true in the pre-9/11 world, from the early 1990s through September 10, when al Qaeda forged relationships with allied terrorist organizations first in the Sudan, al Qaeda’s base from roughly 1991 until 1996, and then in Afghanistan.

And it is true in the post-9/11 world, where al Qaeda continues to leverage its decades-long relationships with jihadist allies around the globe and especially in the heart of Central and South Asia.

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It is remarkable that anyone would argue that a Taliban safe haven in Afghanistan would not necessarily lead to an al Qaeda safe haven there given that the two currently enjoy the same safe havens in Northern Pakistan. After the two jointly established the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan in 2006, for example, it should have become painfully obvious that they had not given up on their combined territorial ambitions.

Just as in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, these safe havens are home to broad cooperation between the Taliban and al Qaeda. The Taliban hosts camps for al Qaeda’s paramilitary army, as well as al Qaeda’s external network – that is, those terrorists responsible for striking the West. By some estimates there are more than 150 training camps, of various sizes and configurations, in the tribal areas in Northwestern Pakistan.

Senior al Qaeda leaders are routinely killed at Taliban safe houses, training camps, and compounds during U.S. airstrikes. Numerous Taliban leaders, including the Haqqanis (a father and son team who are based both in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas, as discussed below), Hakeemullah Mehsud, Mullah Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Omar Khalid, Mullah Fazlullah, and Faqir Mohammed host al Qaeda’s leaders and foot soldiers. These Taliban commanders conduct cross-border operations in Afghanistan, and aid al Qaeda in doing so as well.

Read the entire piece.

Focusing narrowly on just al Qaeda as the enemy ignores the larger picture of a global jihad network of terrorism at work, which includes involvement by their state-sponsors (such as Saddam’s Iraq).

*UPDATE* 10/10/2009 08:13

Thomas Ricks thinks in 2009, the resurgent Taliban would still offer safe haven to al Qaeda. Also:

Another Taliban member says they benefited from American violence and the abuses of the Kabul government:

The Afghan Taliban were weak and disorganized. But slowly the situation began to change. American operations that harassed villagers, bombings that killed civilians, and Karzai’s corrupt police were alienating villagers and turning them in our favor. Soon we didn’t have to hide so much on our raids. We came openly. When they saw us, villagers started preparing green tea and food for us. The tables were turning. Karzai’s police and officials mostly hid in their district compounds like prisoners.

COIN success relies upon us being the ones to win over hearts and minds, with the Taliban marginalizing themselves by their violence against the Afghan tribes.

Also check out American Power and The Snooper Report, as Taliban militants escalate their conflict in Pakistan.