Obama: Afghan war secures America

Soldiers dying in Afghanistan keeps us safe ?

Press TV – US President Barack Obama says there will be no quick or easy victory over the Taliban, noting that the war in Afghanistan is crucial in protecting Americans from terrorism.

Talking in a meeting of veterans in Arizona on Monday, Obama tried to step up the campaign in Afghanistan. “The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight and we won’t defeat it overnight,” he said.

US administration is sending 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, therefore the success or failure of the mission of US forces in the war-torn country is crucial for its future plans in the region.

“This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity,” he said. “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans,” he said.

The remarks came a day after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown trying to ease the growing opposition to the Afghan war said the war in Afghanistan is a “sacrifice” made to make “Britain and the rest of the world” a safer place.

The two leaders however failed to elaborate the dire situation the war-ravaged nation has been facing ever since the US-led coalition forces invaded their country more than eight years ago.

According to UN figures, Afghan civilians remain the main victims of the notorious war which was launched to allegedly destroy the militancy and arrest militant leaders including Osama bin Laden.

This week’s Afghan presidential and provincial elections will be considered as a test of the new US strategy of providing security on the ground.

This is while, Taliban vowing to interrupt the election, have already fired rockets at the Afghan capital twice this month.

A rocket hit Tuesday the presidential palace in the center of Afghan capital, Kabul and a second struck the city’s police headquarters.

Also on Saturday, a suicide car bomb exploded outside the NATO military headquarters in the Afghan capital Kabul near the US embassy, killing seven people and injuring scores.

Beijing’s Afghan Gamble!

By ROBERT D. KAPLAN

Published: October 6, 2009

IN Afghanistan’s Logar Province, just south of Kabul, the geopolitical future of Asia is becoming apparent: American troops are providing security for a Chinese state-owned company to exploit the Aynak copper reserves, which are worth tens of billions of dollars. While some of America’s NATO allies want to do as little as possible in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan, China has its eyes on some of world’s last untapped deposits of copper, iron, gold, uranium and precious gems, and is willing to take big risks in one of the most violent countries to secure them.

In Afghanistan, American and Chinese interests converge. By exploiting Afghanistan’s metal and mineral reserves, China can provide thousands of Afghans with jobs, thus generating tax revenues to help stabilize a tottering Kabul government. Just as America has a vision of a modestly stable Afghanistan that will no longer be a haven for extremists, China has a vision of Afghanistan as a secure conduit for roads and energy pipelines that will bring natural resources from the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. So if America defeats Al Qaeda and the irreconcilable elements of the Taliban, China’s geopolitical position will be enhanced.

This is not a paradox, since China need not be our future adversary. Indeed, combining forces with China in Afghanistan might even improve the relationship between Washington and Beijing. The problem is that while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America’s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit.

But what if America decides to leave, or to drastically reduce its footprint to a counterterrorism strategy focused mainly on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? Then another scenario might play out. Kandahar and other areas will most likely fall to the Taliban, creating a truly lawless realm that wrecks China’s plans for an energy and commodities passageway through South Asia. It would also, of course, be a momentous moral victory achieved by radical Muslims who, having first defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, will then have triumphed over another superpower.

And the calculations get more complicated still: a withdrawal of any kind from Afghanistan before a stable government is in place would also hurt India, a critical if undeclared American ally, and increasingly a rival of China. Were the Taliban to retake Afghanistan, India would face a radical Islamistan stretching from its border with Pakistan deep into Central Asia. With the Taliban triumphant on Pakistan’s western border, jihadists there could direct their energies to the eastern border with India.

India would defeat Pakistan in a war, conventional or nuclear. But having to do so, or simply needing to face down a significantly greater jihadist threat next door, would divert India’s national energies away from further developing its economy and its navy, a development China would quietly welcome.

Bottom line: China will find a way to benefit no matter what the United States does in Afghanistan. But it probably benefits more if we stay and add troops to the fight. The same goes for Russia. Because of continuing unrest in the Islamic southern tier of the former Soviet Union, Moscow has an interest in America stabilizing Afghanistan (though it would take a certain psychological pleasure from a humiliating American withdrawal).

In nuts-and-bolts terms, if we stay in Afghanistan and eventually succeed, other countries will benefit more than we will. China, India and Russia are all Asian powers, geographically proximate to Afghanistan and better able, therefore, to garner practical advantages from any stability our armed forces would make possible.

Everyone keeps saying that America is not an empire, but our military finds itself in the sort of situation that was mighty familiar to empires like that of ancient Rome and 19th-century Britain: struggling in a far-off corner of the world to exact revenge, to put down the fires of rebellion, and to restore civilized order. Meanwhile, other rising and resurgent powers wait patiently in the wings, free-riding on the public good we offer. This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions.

Of course, one could make an excellent case that an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is precisely what would lead to our decline, by demoralizing our military, signaling to our friends worldwide that we cannot be counted on and demonstrating that our enemies have greater resolve than we do. That is why we have no choice in Afghanistan but to add troops and continue to fight.

But as much as we hone our counterinsurgency skills and develop assets for the “long war,” history would suggest that over time we can more easily preserve our standing in the world by using naval and air power from a distance when intervening abroad. Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others.

Robert D. Kaplan is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic.

Courtesy: New York Times

US forces leave east Afghanistan area after deadly attack

US forces have withdrawn from a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan following last week’s major battle there with the Taliban, NATO-led forces said today in Kabul.

The pullout was announced before the October 3 attack, but the assault has drawn fresh attention to a new US strategy to move troops out of remote areas and focus more on populated districts.

“It is the intent of the ISAF (NATO-led force) commander, US Army General Stanley McChrystal, to place an emphasis on protecting the people of Afghanistan by focusing on more populated areas,” the NATO-led force said in a statement.

It said troops and equipment had been moved from the outpost in the Kamdesh district of northeastern Nuristan Province to other locations in eastern Afghanistan.

In the deadliest attack for US forces since a July 2008 battle in nearby Kunar, eight US soldiers were killed when Taliban fighters stormed remote outposts near the Pakistan border last week. At least two Afghan troops died in the firefight.

NATO forces said 100 insurgents were killed.

In the past, when US troops have left areas in dispute, the Taliban have launched attacks to display strength and lay claim to them.

This year has become by far the deadliest for Western forces in the eight-year war that followed the removal of the Taliban from power. More than 400 Western troops have died so far, more than in the entire period from 2001-05.

There are now more than 100,000 Western forces serving in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them American. McChrystal has submitted a request for tens of thousands more, arguing that without them he cannot implement his new strategy and the war will probably be lost

Kabul blast kills 7 civilians, wounds 45 – police

SEVEN Afghan civilians were killed and 45 more were wounded in a blast outside the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital today, police sources said.

The blast came from a bomb placed inside a car at the scene, police said, but it was not immediately clear if it was a suicide attack.

Courtesy: Shanghai Daily

Obama receives request for Afghan troop increase!

Source: Agencies | 2009-10-8 |

US President Barack Obama has received a request for more troops by the top US commander in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said yesterday, moving him a step closer to a long-awaited decision on a new military buildup.

The document recommends sending up to 40,000 additional US and NATO troops to support the stalled, eight-year-old Afghan campaign on top of the 104,000 currently in place, according to congressional officials.

Obama, who has launched a review of his administration’s six-month-old war strategy, remains undecided on whether to send in more troops — the recommendation of the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to try to reverse gains by a resurgent Taliban, officials said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama received the request from Defense Secretary Robert Gates last Thursday before traveling to Europe, where he met with McChrystal. It was unclear how long Obama would take to act on the troop request.

“We’re going to go through this process of evaluating the goals and the strategy, and … at a point after that, we’ll get to discussing resources,” Gibbs said.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said in Washington he expected Obama to settle on a strategy and troop levels later this month or in early November.

A US official said Obama held a roughly three-hour strategy review on Wednesday focusing on Pakistan, ways to improve cooperation with Islamabad and how to continue “disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-Qaeda.” Another session on Friday will focus primarily on Afghanistan.

The decisions may be the most important, and difficult, of Obama’s young presidency, congressional leaders say.

BACKLASH OR CRITICISM?

US and NATO casualties have risen and public support for the eight-year-old war has eroded. Sending as many as 40,000 additional troops could spark a backlash within Obama’s own Democratic Party.

Sending a smaller number of troops, or no troops at all, will open Obama up to further criticism from congressional Republicans and, possibly, the military, for taking a more politically palatable middle-road approach.

CBS News, without citing named sources, reported that McChrystal wanted to ask for 50,000 troops but was convinced to lower the request to 40,000.

An alternative to the current counter-insurgency strategy, backed by Vice President Joe Biden, would focus more narrowly on air strikes against al Qaeda targets.

But Obama has told congressional leaders that he would neither substantially reduce the US mission in Afghanistan, nor shift the strategy to focus mainly on hunting militants.

Officials said strong consideration was being given to a war strategy that incorporates both counter-insurgency and counterterrorism operations inside Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said McChrystal’s request, which will be kept secret, was based upon the assumption that the United States was pursuing a counter-insurgency strategy. This would focus more on securing the support of the Afghan people than killing militants.

“If the decisions that are made in the coming weeks are different from that, there can be adjustments made to the request,” Morrell said.

Gates has yet to provide the president with his personal recommendations, the Pentagon said.

A pivotal player in the decision making, Gates has said that many of his earlier reservations about adding forces have been addressed. He remains a strong proponent of a counter-insurgency strategy, which could signal that he may be leaning toward a further buildup.

Pressure has been mounting on Obama for weeks to make a swift decision. Republican Sen. John McCain, who was defeated by Obama in last year’s presidential election, repeated his call for Obama to implement the commander’s recommendations and not take “half-measures.”

Courtesy: Shanghai Daily

Gilani denies report about Balochistan drone attacks

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani denied on Monday reports that the United States intended to extend drone attacks to Balochistan to eliminate Taliban leaders. – AP (File Photo)

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani denied on Monday reports that the United States intended to extend drone attacks to Balochistan to eliminate Taliban leaders and said Pakistan was capable of taking action on its own were credible information provided to it.

The Sunday Times reported that the US was threatening to launch air strikes against Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in Quetta as frustration was mounting about the ease with which they (allegedly) found sanctuary across the border from Afghanistan.Talking to reporters after inaugurating a Chinese photo exhibition at the Pakistan National Arts Council, Mr Gilani said Pakistan was fighting the war against terrorism as its own war and it was not a proxy war.

‘The armed forces, people and the government of Pakistan are together in this war which is fought under a strategy planned by its own strategists and we will allow anyone to dictate us.’

In reply to a question about reports of further increase in electricity tariff, the prime minister said it was a prerogative of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority to increase or decrease the tariff.

Courtesy: Dawn News Paper

The US should end the Afghan war–China

Afghanistan’s political and social turmoil has been aggravated by different intentions of the participating nations that constitute the coalition forces. In the short term, the fragile Afghan regime is finding it difficult to tame its restive domestic situation. Still, a prescription could help bring the country out of the mess if key players adopt a peaceful and reconciliatory approach in their push for the end of the war.The United States should first put an end to the war. The anti-terror war, which the former US administration of George W Bush launched in 2001, has turned out to be the source of ceaseless turbulence and violence in the past years. To promote much-needed reconciliation among the parties concerned, the US should end its military action. The war has neither brought the Islamic nation peace and security as the Bush administration originally promised, nor brought any tangible benefits to the US itself. On the contrary, the legitimacy of the US military action has been under increasing doubt.

Public opinion within the US on the war has undergone dramatic change. According to a recent poll, opinion in favor of the war has declined from 53 percent in April to 39 percent, while opinion opposed to the war has increased to 58 percent from 46 percent. The US Congress has also cast doubt over the Obama administration’s Afghanistan strategy. The opposition from 74 percent Democrats and 70 percent independent votes to the war would be a big restraint on the Obama administration’s larger military strides given that the new president cannot afford to bet his political fate on a unpopular war. Since taking office as president, Obama has been under pressure from the Pentagon for military reinforcements in Afghanistan. The calls of war opponents over that of supporters will give the young US president the best chance to extricate himself from the Pentagon’s pressures. If Obama resolutely decides to stop the war, that would not only meet the US public expectations and save more American lives, but also help recover the US’ peaceful image and enhance the president’s personal political prospects.

Another way to help Afghanistan break the current deadlock is to promote reconciliation among the Afghan government, the Taliban and the country’s major warlords, all being key actors that can play an influential role in deciding the country’s prospect. In addition to the US factor, the chaos in Afghanistan is also closely related to the long-standing domestic strife between factions. Afghanistan experienced numerous wars and conflicts in history, including invasion by the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and the US war. The war-ravaged Asian nation is undergoing a chaotic battle that has involved the US-led coalition forces, its government troops and domestic warlords, the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. The disorderly confrontations and strife do no good to anyone but have only caused untold suffering to Afghan people.

Afghanistan’s political disorder is also the main cause of its domestic chaos. The country’s presidential election on Aug 20 has so far failed to produce a final result. The recount of votes in more than 600 polling stations alleged to have suffered fraud is expected to last another two or three months, which will add to the chaos. The US has urged Afghan president Hamid Karzai to hold a second round of voting. It seems that Karzai has hammered home the perception that the US is not a reliable partner that can help end Afghanistan’s current predicament. Talks, he thinks, is the only way out. The Afghan president is likely to open the process of tri-party peace talks with the Taliban and major warlords provided that the US ends its military action.

Support from the international community is needed to help Afghanistan make a substantive move toward peace. The international community can take advantage of the ever-mounting anti-war calls within the US to prompt the Obama administration to end the war and withdraw US troops. Germany, France and Britain have planned an international conference this year to discuss the gradual withdrawal of Afghanistan military deployment. International pressures may offer Obama another excuse to withdraw US troops. The UN Security Council should carry the baton from the three European nations to convene a conference on the Afghanistan issue and try to reach a consensus among its five permanent Security Council members and draft a roadmap and timetable for resolution of the thorny issue. In the process, a ticklish issue is whether parties concerned can accept the Taliban as a key player in Afghanistan and how to dispose of the Al Qaeda armed forces, an issue that has a key bearing on the outcome of any international conference on the Afghanistan issue.

Surely, an international peacekeeping mission is needed in the absence of US troops. With the aid of international peacekeepers, the Afghanistan government and its security forces can be expected to exercise effective control over domestic unrest and maintain peace and security.

The author is deputy secretary-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies

‘US wants to expand drone attacks into Quetta’

US President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden. – (File Photo)

KARACHI: Senior Pakistani officials in New York have revealed that the United States has sought to extend drone attacks into Quetta and other areas of Balochistan.

‘It wasn’t so much a threat as an understanding that if you don’t do anything, we’ll take matters into our own hands,’ a report in British newspaper Sunday Times quoted an official as saying.

It said the US was threatening to launch air strikes on Taliban leadership allegedly present in Quetta.

‘Western intelligence officers say Pakistan has been moving Taliban leaders to the volatile city of Karachi, where it would be impossible to strike.

‘US officials have even discussed sending commandos to Quetta to capture or kill the Taliban chiefs before they are moved,’ the paper said.

It said suspicions remained among US officials that parts of Inter-Services Intelligence agency were supporting the Taliban and protecting Mullah Omar and other leaders in Quetta.

The threat came amid growing divisions in Washington about whether to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan by sending more troops or by reducing them and targeting the terrorists.

This weekend the US military was expected to send a request to Defence Secretary Robert Gates for more troops, as urged by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, the report said.

However, with President Barack Obama under pressure from fellow Democrats not to intensify the war, the administration has let it be known that it is rethinking strategy.

Vice-President Joe Biden has suggested reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan and focussing on Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The camp argues that attacks by drones on Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al Qaeda leaders are allegedly hiding, have been successful. Sending more troops to Afghanistan has only inflamed tensions. ‘Pakistan is the nuclear elephant in the room,’ said a western diplomat.

The Afghan election has strengthened the position of those in Washington who advocate eliminating Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

There have been complaints that fraudulent ballots may account for up to 20 per cent of the 5.5 million votes cast in the polls won by President Hamid Karzai.

The election has left many European leaders struggling to justify sending soldiers to support a government facing accusations of having been fraudulently elected.

Richard Barrett, head of the UN Commission on Monitoring Taliban and Al Qaeda, also believes that the presence of foreign troops has increased militant activity in Afghanistan and made it easier for the Taliban to recruit.

The Sunday Times report warned that drone attacks on Quetta would intensify anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. Some British officials argued that such missions would be ‘unthinkable’.

It said that while the government of President Asif Ali Zardari was committed to wiping out terrorism, the country’s military did not entirely share this view.

It was to shore up President Zardari’s domestic standing that President Obama attended a Friends of Pakistan summit in New York on Thursday. On the same day, the US Senate tripled non-military aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.

The Obama administration hopes such moves will reduce anti-American feeling. A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre found that almost two-thirds regarded the US as an enemy.

Meanwhile Interior Minister Rehman Malik said: ‘The Americans have never told us any location. We need real-time intelligence’ to take action.

However, ‘There has been tacit cooperation over the use of drones. Some are even stationed inside Pakistan, although publicly the government denounces their use,’ the paper said.

Courtesy: Dawn News Paper

Obama reviews options in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, under pressure for a swift decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan, has delayed action due to doubts about the election there and over the government’s legitimacy, officials said on Tuesday.

As a prominent Democrat lawmaker warned Obama not to repeat a “half-ass it and hope” policy, and Republicans accused him of foot dragging, the White House engaged in a thorough review of whether its war strategy would still be effective given the widespread reports of fraud in last month’s election.

Even the best counterinsurgency strategy “cannot work” without a legitimate government in place, one White House official said, underscoring the intense debate within the administration about how to move forward.

The Pentagon had initially anticipated that the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, would submit a request for more soldiers soon after delivering his confidential assessment on the war.

But White House and Pentagon officials said questions about Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s legitimacy have thrown that timetable off course. Consideration of a troop increase would now wait until Obama completed a review of the six-month-old counterinsurgency strategy.

That strategy hinges on protecting Afghan civilians, while rapidly bolstering Afghan security and governance in order to sap public support for the Taliban.

Officials said the White House wanted the picture to be clearer before taking a decision on resources that could spark a backlash within Obama’s own Democratic party, where doubts about the war resurfaced this summer.

But a leading Democrat warned Obama to give troops the backing and time they needed to succeed.

“The last administration allowed itself to be distracted from the fight forced on us in Afghanistan by the fight it chose in Iraq,” Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Ike Skelton said in a letter to Obama.

“I believe that this was a strategic mistake … resulting in an approach of ”half-ass it and hope”,” he said. “We cannot afford to continue that policy.”

OPTIONS ON THE TABLE

As part of the review, the administration is considering a range of options, from increasing U.S. force levels in Afghanistan to stepping up aerial attacks on Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, or a combination of the two.

McChrystal, who warned in his leaked assessment that the mission was likely to fail without additional troops, may have a hard sell. Obama has described himself as a “skeptical audience” when it comes to the issue of sending more troops.

There are already more than 100,000 Western soldiers in Afghanistan battling an insurgency that has taken control of parts of the south and east of the country.

McChrystal was expected to recommend sending at least 30,000 more, but officials said the White House’s strategy rethink could force him to revise his request.

Karzai’s apparent eagerness to ignore widespread allegations of election fraud, hurry through the process and claim victory has chilled already frosty relations with the Obama administration, officials said.

One U.S. defense official said the fallout from the election was “certainly a complicating factor” in the way of swift consideration of McChrystal’s troop recommendations.

Officials said the main question being asked was whether the counterinsurgency strategy could still succeed if Karzai’s government was not seen by the Afghan people as legitimate.

“I don’t think so,” one official said when asked that question. “Will the Afghan people accept the results of the election? We don’t even know that yet.”

KABUL GOVERNMENT

Some Pentagon officials saw the administration’s sudden focus on the legitimacy of the Afghan government as an excuse for putting off a tough political decision on troops.

Critics suggested Obama was putting off the issue to keep his own Democratic party unified to pass a sweeping overhaul of healthcare, his top domestic policy priority.

Sen. John McCain, who lost the presidential race to Obama last year, said a decision on troops needed to be made urgently and said he was baffled by the idea that Obama would ask McChrystal to delay sending his recommendations.

“Frankly I do not understand, or perhaps I have never seen a disconnect like this between the military leadership and the White House on an issue,” McCain said.

But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, dismissed talk of a rift as a media construct.

Mullah Omer’s Want Americans To Re-Call History!!!

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a statement Saturday telling people of the West not to listen to U.S. President Barack Obama‘s justifications of war and vowing to defeat NATO troops like other invaders of history.

In a statement posted in English on a Taliban website, shahamat.org, marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and attributed to the reclusive Taliban leader, Omar said U.S. and British offensives in recent months had been a failure.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan calls on the public of the West not to be deceived by the assertions of Obama, who says the war in Afghanistan, is a war of necessity. The West does not have to wage this war,” the statement said.

“The public of the West should also not be deceived by the assertions of the General Secretary of NATO and British prime minister who claim the war in Afghanistan is for the defense of the West. Such deceiving and baseless utterances must not confuse you.”

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf, said the statement was genuine. The precise whereabouts and health status of Omar are not known, as he does not appear in public.

Obama, who has already ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, is expected to consider a request for more troops from his commander there in coming weeks.

There are now more than 100,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, two thirds of them Americans.

“The invaders should study the history of Afghanistan from the time of the aggression of the Alexander,” the statement said.

“Still, if they are bent on ignoring the history, then they themselves saw with their own eyes the events of the past eight years. Have they achieved anything in the past eight years?”

U.S. commanders believe the reclusive Taliban leader has been hiding in Pakistan since he was driven from power in Kabul in 2001 after refusing to turn over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

A press officer for U.S. and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, Captain Elizabeth Mathias, declined to comment on the statement.

(Editing by Mike Peacock)

Courtesy: Reuters