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Hillary Clinton: All nations must play a part in Afghanistan mission

This week, President Barack Obama reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to our core goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and prevent their return to either country. The US is sending an additional 30,000 personnel to Afghanistan, significantly increasing our civilian aid to the Afghan people, and broadening our partnership with Pakistan.

Today in Brussels, I will discuss the way forward with our allies. And I will thank those nations that have pledged additional troops. This is a crucial test for Nato. After September 11, the alliance invoked Article 5 of its charter for the first time, affirming that the terrorist attacks planned in Afghanistan and perpetrated in the US were attacks on every Nato member. The members of the alliance have paid a steep price in lives, but we must remain firm in our resolve.

For countries in the region, the stakes are particularly high. Civilians of every faith have been murdered, but Muslims have paid the highest toll. Troops from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other Muslim-majority nations are fighting extremism in Afghanistan and their participation is vital to our mission.

Along with the extra American troops, more international forces will help to deny al-Qaeda a safe haven; reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government; and strengthen the capacity of the Afghans to take responsibility for their own security.

full article at www.telegraph.co.uk

Accelerated Troop Surge in Afghanistan Faces Logistical 'Challenge'

It took four months to plan and now will take six months to deploy 30,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a timeline whose pace surprised some in and outside of the Defense Department.

One senior defense official said bringing that many troops into the country in that short a time creates a logistical "challenge" that won't be easy. But it won't be impossible either.

Deploying troops to Afghanistan in the next six months will be met by the country's harsh winters. Fighting drops dramatically over the winter months as roads become impassable and the U.S. will be forced to fly everything in, which takes considerable time, sources told Fox News.

full article at www.foxnews.com

Obama Plans Accelerated Troop Deployment for Afghan Mission

 

President Barack Obama has ordered an 18-month "surge" of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, after which the administration will review the war's progress and set a withdrawal timetable, a White House official said Tuesday.

At least some of the U.S. forces will begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011. That timetable suggests the troop commitment, which will take U.S. forces to nearly 100,000, won't be the sort of open-ended increase requested by top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Ahead of Mr. Obama's high-stakes speech to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., tonight, administration officials are stressing the speed of the deployments, and the potential speed of withdrawals, if all goes well. U.S. troops will be teamed with Afghan security forces in an effort to speed the transfer of security duties to the Afghan army and police. That plan closely resembles the surge of forces into Iraq in 2007, a plan Mr. Obama, then a senator, opposed.

After a three-month review of the war effort in Afghanistan, the White House is now looking ahead to another review -- after the additional troops have been in place 18 months. White House officials say the president will lay out a series of dates tonight to map out what they say will be the orderly winding down of a war now in its ninth year.

full article at online.wsj.com

UK Special forces leading fight in Afghanistan

 

Gordon Brown took the unusual step today of announcing that just over 500 special forces soldiers are spearheading Britain's fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

On the eve of Barack Obama's statement on Afghanistan, Brown praised the special forces for "taking the fight directly to the Taliban", as he confirmed that a further 500 regular troops would be deployed within days. Those troops, all of whom will arrive in Afghanistan by Christmas, are Britain's contribution to the new international military and political surge that will be announced by Obama tomorrow night.

full story at www.guardian.co.uk

Michael Moore to Obama: No more troops in Afghanistan

 

Activist filmmaker Michael Moore has penned an open letter to President Obama, cautioning the commander in chief against increasing troop levels in Afghanistan.

"When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has," Moore wrote in the letter posted on his official Web site, michaelmoore.com.

Obama is expected to formally unveil his military strategy in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, on Tuesday night.

full story at edition.cnn.com

Selling realism in Afghanistan

 

As President Barack Obama prepares to make the case for sending more troops to Afghanistan, some allies are urging him to return to a line of argument little heard since the Bush years: the United States has a moral obligation to protect the Afghan people, particularly women, from the Taliban.

Obama ran on a promise to restore cold-eyed calculations of national interest to American foreign policy, a reaction against President George W. Bush’s tendency to cast a confrontational foreign policy in terms of the freedoms it would achieve for nations that did not have them. And he has governed without the public appeals to human rights that marked American foreign policy ventures from Kosovo to Iraq.

But realism has proved, at times, a hard political sell. Bloodless talk about “engagement” has left the Obama administration without a compelling story to tell or argument to make. And its emphasis on process has only increased the pressure for more tangible results.

In Afghanistan, the White House was reluctant to play up the Taliban’s excesses and the plight of Afghan women while it considered withdrawing from an active role in the country’s governance. But as Obama moves toward sending additional troops – reportedly more than 30,000 more – to the country, supporters of the policy are urging him to stress human rights in an effort to revive support for an increasingly unpopular war.

full article at www.politico.com

Pay for troop increase in Afghanistan or charge it?

 

President Obama is set to announce his strategy in a speech Tuesday at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. And the question of cost hovers in the background of the difficult decision he faces.

Over the past eight years, the nearly $1 trillion cost of the military's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan was essentially charged to the national credit card.

Will it be different this time?

There's some chance lawmakers may opt to pay the bill as it comes due, rather than letting the balance and interest accrue. It's not the first time the idea has come up, but it may be the first time the idea is given serious consideration.

full story at money.cnn.com

Obama administration paints rosier picture of Afghanistan war

 

As they prepare to roll out a new Afghan policy to a skeptical U.S. audience, Obama administration officials have begun recalibrating how they portray the war-damaged country and its government, subduing their grim assessments of the past year and emphasizing the positive.

Before now, U.S. officials stressed the arduous challenges facing the U.S. effort because of the battered condition of Afghan society and the corruption and ineffectiveness of its central government. But in recent days, the administration has praised the strides the country has taken and the skills and idealism of its officials, even the heavily criticized president, Hamid Karzai. They are talking up its economic potential, its educational progress and even its anti-corruption efforts.

"The picture in Afghanistan is much more positive than we often give it credit for," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a visit to Kabul this month. The message is aimed in part, officials say, at trying to build U.S. support for the expected U.S. troop increase at a time when most Americans have turned against the mission and some Democratic congressional leaders have concluded it is hopeless.

full story at www.chicagotribune.com

Obama Faces Tough Task in Outlining Afghanistan Strategy

 

In his prime-time speech from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, Obama is expected to announce he's sending up to 35,000 more troops -- while trying to affirm he has found a clear path of success in a country known as the graveyard of empires.

President Obama said he intended to "finish the job" in Afghanistan. Now he has to say how.

No sweat? Hardly.

When the president announces his plans for the war Tuesday, he will have plenty of people to convince: frustrated liberals in Congress opposed to any troop surges, Republicans who have questioned Obama's lengthy deliberations and an American public that increasingly is giving up on the eight-year war.

full story at www.foxnews.com

Prosecuting American 'War Crimes' in Afghanistan

 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed "great regret" in August that the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has fueled speculation that the Obama administration may reverse another Bush policy and sign up for what could lead to the trial of Americans for war crimes in The Hague.

The ICC's chief prosecutor, though, has no intention of waiting for Washington to submit to the court's authority. Luis Moreno Ocampo says he already has jurisdiction—at least with respect to Afghanistan.

Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC's founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory, even those from nontreaty countries, fall under the ICC's oversight, Mr. Ocampo told me. And the chief prosecutor says he is already conducting a "preliminary examination" into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock

full article at online.wsj.com