Middle East Public date: 24.08.2017 23:12:18

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23 Jun 2011

Dissonance: Obama Wants Peace Talks And Forever War in Afghanistan

President Obama firmly committed the U.S. to peace talks with the Taliban in Wednesday night’s big Afghanistan speech. His administration, meanwhile, is rowing in the opposite direction: negotiating deals with Hamid Karzai’s government that would keep drones and commandos in Afghanistan forever and ever. See if you can spot the tension there. For the first time, [...]
President Obama firmly committed the U.S. to peace talks with the Taliban in Wednesday night’s big Afghanistan speech....
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drawdown, obama, peace, taliban, war
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20 Jun 2011

Microdrones, Some as Small as Bugs, Are Poised to Alter War

Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.
Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at...
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drones, war
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11 Apr 2011

War in Afghanistan is destabilising Pakistan, says president

The war in Afghanistan is destabilising Pakistan and seriously undermining efforts to restore its democratic institutions and economic prosperity after a decade of military dictatorship, Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, has told the Guardian.
The war in Afghanistan is destabilising Pakistan and seriously undermining efforts to restore its democratic...
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pakistan, war
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17 Feb 2011

Worth a Bottle of Whiskey

Our 3,413th day at war in Afghanistan seemed like a good day to learn about Afghanistan. The longest stretch of war in American history has merited the shortest attention span.
Our 3,413th day at war in Afghanistan seemed like a good day to learn about Afghanistan. The longest stretch of war in...
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war
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11 Jan 2011

Afghan hope is gone

At the end of each year, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion passes quietly in Afghanistan. There is little in the way of a public commemoration, just the occasional radio show on the subject or a TV debate between ex-government officials and the mujahideen they once fought.
At the end of each year, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion passes quietly in Afghanistan. There is little in the...
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progress, war
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5 Jan 2011

How Afghanistan became a NATO war

The official line of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO command in Afghanistan, is that the war against Afghan insurgents is vital to the security of all the countries providing troops there. In fact, however, NATO was given a central role in Afghanistan because of the influence of US officials concerned with the alliance, according to a US military officer who was in a position to observe the decision-making process. "NATO's role in Afghanistan is more about NATO than it is about Afghanistan," said an officer, who insisted on anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the subject.
The official line of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO command in Afghanistan, is that the...
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nato, war
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27 Dec 2010

Afghanistan – The Top 10 Myths of 2010

A recent National Intelligence Estimate by 16 intelligence agencies found no progress. It warned that large swathes of the country were at risk of falling to the Taliban and that they still had safe havens in Pakistan, with the Pakistani government complicit. The UN says there were over 6000 civilian casualties of war in Afghanistan in the first 10 months of 2010, a 20% increase over the same period in 2009.
A recent National Intelligence Estimate by 16 intelligence agencies found no progress. It warned that large swathes of...
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drawdown, public opinion, surge, war
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16 Dec 2010

Obama Never Mind Afghanistan, It’s All About The Drones

One year and 30,000 new troops later, Afghanistan is peripheral to the Afghanistan war. According to the Obama administration s review of its strategy, it s official: this a U.S. drone war in Pakistan with a big, big U.S. troop component next door.
One year and 30,000 new troops later, Afghanistan is peripheral to the Afghanistan war. According to the Obama...
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drones, pakistan, war
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24 Nov 2010

The Great Game Imposter

And we wonder why we haven t found Osama bin Laden. Though we re pouring billions into intelligence in Afghanistan, we can t even tell the difference between a no-name faker and a senior member of the Taliban. The tragedy of Afghanistan has descended into farce. In the sort of scene that would have entertained millions if Billy Wilder had made a movie of Kipling s Kim, it turns out that Afghan and NATO leaders have been negotiating for months with an imposter pretending to be a top Taliban commander - even as Gen. David Petraeus was assuring reporters that there were promising overtures to President Hamid Karzai from the Taliban about ending the war.
And we wonder why we haven t found Osama bin Laden. Though we re pouring billions into intelligence in Afghanistan, we...
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progress, taliban, usa, war
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25 Sep 2010

The CIA-Trained Teams Going into Pakistan

The CIA has relied on Lilley, part of a constellation of agency bases across Afghanistan, as a hub to train and deploy a well-armed 3,000-member Afghan paramilitary force collectively known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. In addition to being used for surveillance, raids and combat operations in Afghanistan, the teams are crucial to the United States' secret war in Pakistan, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The CIA has relied on Lilley, part of a constellation of agency bases across Afghanistan, as a hub to train and deploy a...
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cia, war
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2 Aug 2010

Kiss This War Goodbye

IT was on a Sunday morning, June 13, 1971, that The Times published its first installment of the Pentagon Papers. Few readers may have been more excited than a circle of aspiring undergraduate journalists who d worked at The Harvard Crimson. Though the identity of The Times s source wouldn t eke out for several days, we knew the whistle-blower had to be Daniel Ellsberg, an intense research fellow at M.I.T. and former Robert McNamara acolyte who d become an antiwar activist around Boston. We recognized the papers contents, as reported in The Times, because we d heard the war stories from the loquacious Ellsberg himself.
IT was on a Sunday morning, June 13, 1971, that The Times published its first installment of the Pentagon Papers. Few...
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war, wikileaks
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28 Jul 2010

Document leak part of U.S. plot, says Pakistani ex-general with ties to Taliban

RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN -- From the deluge of leaked military documents published Sunday, a former Pakistani spy chief emerged as a chilling personification of his nation's alleged duplicity in the Afghan war -- an erstwhile U.S. ally turned Taliban tutor. Now planted squarely in the cross hairs, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul seems little short of delighted. In an interview Tuesday, Gul dismissed the accusations against him as "fiction" and described the documents' release as the start of a White House plot. It will end, he posited, with an early U.S. pullout from Afghanistan -- thus proving Gul, an unabashed advocate of the Afghan insurgency, right. President Obama "is a very good chess player. . . . He says, 'I don't want to carry the historic blame of having orchestrated the defeat of America, their humiliation in Afghanistan,' " said Gul, 74, adding that the plot incorporates a troop surge that Obama knows will fail. "It doesn't sell to a professional man like me."
RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN -- From the deluge of leaked military documents published Sunday, a former Pakistani spy chief...
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war, wikileaks
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26 Jul 2010

Excerpts Leaked US Afghan war records

Leaked US military records on the war in Afghanistan, which were posted on the Wikileaks website as the Afghan War Diary, are a classified - and previously unreported - daily rundown of incidents of violence and criminality in Afghanistan. The documents offer a snapshot of the grim reality of conditions on the ground in Afghanistan and the challenges facing troops operating there.
Leaked US military records on the war in Afghanistan, which were posted on the Wikileaks website as the Afghan War...
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war, wikileaks
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8 Jun 2010

Wali Karzai A Deal We Should Refuse by Kelley B. Vlahos

Known as the "King of Kandahar," Karzai has an iron grip on every political and commercial enterprise in southern Afghanistan. Though he vehemently denies much of it, numerous reports have him pegged as the godfather who lets nothing trucks carrying supplies, private security guards, property transactions, even opium shipments, and the secret police move until he gets a cut. He s been accused of taking over local law enforcement, stealing land for his cronies, stuffing ballot boxes for his brother, and disappearing his political enemies.
Known as the "King of Kandahar," Karzai has an iron grip on every political and commercial enterprise in southern...
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corruption, peace, war
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