Nov 11, 2009 1 Comment ›› Erik Wong
New York Times: WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan, but President Obama remains unsatisfied with answers he has gotten about how vigorously ...
Continue ReadingNov 11, 2009 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL (AP) -- Military divers have found the body of one of two U.S. soldiers who went missing last week as they tried to recover airdropped supplies that fell into a river in western Afghanistan, NATO said Wednesday. The two paratroopers, from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, disappeared in Badghis province, a ...
Continue ReadingNov 11, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (AP) - Far from winding down, the numbers of wounded U.S. soldiers coming home have continued to swell. The problem is especially acute among those who fought in Afghanistan, where nearly four times as many troops were injured in October as a year ago. Amputations, burns, brain injuries and shrapnel wounds proliferate in Afghanistan, due ...
Continue ReadingNov 10, 2009 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Times Online: President Obama is to ask members of Nato to provide up to 4,000 more troops to help to break the deadlock in Afghanistan. Mr Obama is poised to confirm a surge of more than 30,000 US combat troops, according to senior military sources. He will also urge the rest of Nato to provide thousands of ...
Continue ReadingNov 10, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is considering four options for realigning U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, his spokesman said Tuesday, while military officials said the choices involve several ways the president could employ additional U.S. forces next year. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will discuss the four scenarios with his national security team ...
Continue ReadingNov 9, 2009 16 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Bloomberg: Nov. 8 -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the military and civil militias today to prepare for war as a deterrent to a U.S.-led attack after American troops gained access to military bases in neighboring Colombia. Chavez said a recently signed agreement that gives American troops access to seven Colombian bases is a direct threat to ...
Continue ReadingNov 4, 2009 6 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Times Online: Five British soldiers have been shot dead after a rogue Afghan policeman turned his weapon against a British training team inside a checkpoint in Helmand Province. The soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, died in the village of Shin Kalay in Nad-e’Ali district of Helmand Province yesterday afternoon. ...
Continue ReadingNov 3, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
Times Online: Hamid Karzai vowed to crack down on corruption and reach out to his political rivals, a day after he was declared the winner of Afghanistan’s fraud-ridden presidential elections. Flanked by his two vice-presidents, Mr Karzai made a subdued acceptance speech this morning in which he attempted to reassure the international community that he would be ...
Continue ReadingNov 2, 2009 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Fox News: President Obama has run out of "excuses" for delaying a decision on whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, House Minority Leader John Boehner said Monday after Afghan President Hamid Karzai was declared the winner of his nation's presidential election by default. Obama administration officials had suggested that a decision on American troop ...
Continue ReadingNov 2, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL (AP) - Afghanistan's election commission proclaimed President Hamid Karzai the victor of the country's tumultuous ballot Monday, canceling a planned runoff and ending a political crisis two and a half months after a fraud-marred first round. The Obama administration—which has been waiting for a government deemed legitimate to emerge in Kabul before announcing whether to ...
Continue ReadingNov 2, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
Keith Moon and Abdullah Abdullah Excerpted from The Guardian: The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, today pledged to stand by the next Afghan government as Afghanistan's western backers pushed for a swift coronation of Hamid Karzai as president following the decision by his closest challenger to withdraw from the runoff vote. After meeting Karzai and his main rival ...
Continue ReadingNov 1, 2009 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Citing security concerns, the U.N. suspended long-term development work in two key areas along Pakistan's volatile border with Afghanistan on Monday, a blow to international efforts to counter the country's rising militancy. Underscoring the militant threat, an explosion near a bank killed four people and wounded more than a dozen in the capital's ...
Continue ReadingNov 1, 2009 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) - An explosion outside a bank near Pakistan's capital killed at least 34 people Monday, the latest in a wave of attacks by militants since the army launched a new offensive against them last month. The growing violence in the country prompted the U.N. on Monday to suspend long-term development in Pakistan's volatile ...
Continue ReadingOct 31, 2009 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL (AP) — Afghan presidential challenger Abdullah Abdullah announced Sunday he would not participate in next weekend's runoff election but stopped short of calling on his supporters to boycott the balloting. Abdullah also said the Afghan people should not accept results of an election from the current election commission and told supporters President Hamid Karzai's ...
Continue ReadingOct 31, 2009 13 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
WAPO: "President seeks options for sending fewer to war" Fox News: President Barack Obama grappled Friday with the costs and consequences of a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, but reached no decisions about troop levels, a top aide said, as military advisers briefed the president on an armed services already taxed by challenges around the globe. The president reviewed ...
Continue ReadingOct 30, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistani forces killed two dozen militants in 24 hours and were closing in on a prominent insurgent stronghold in the mountains of South Waziristan, the army said Friday. Government soldiers now control the hills above the village of Sararogha, where Taliban leaders long have operated openly, officials said in a statement. The army ...
Continue ReadingOct 29, 2009 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Times Online: Pakistani troops fighting Islamist militants in the mountains of South Waziristan have picked up the trail of a leading al-Qaeda figure wanted in connection with the attacks on America on September 11, 2001. The Times was shown yesterday the German passport of Said Bahaji, a close associate of the September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. The ...
Continue ReadingOct 29, 2009 7 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
ISLAMABAD (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chided Pakistani officials Thursday for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders, suggesting they know where the terror leaders are hiding. American officials have long said that al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden and senior lieutenants of the network accused in the Sept. 11 ...
Continue ReadingOct 29, 2009 6 Comments ›› Erik Wong
IBD Editorials: Old Soviet joke: Moscow, 1953. Stalin calls in Khrushchev. "Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble." A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: "Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe." A few years later, a really big ...
Continue ReadingOct 29, 2009 9 Comments ›› Erik Wong
CNN: WASHINGTON -- For the first time since September 11, 2001, America is having a vigorous national debate about how to succeed in Afghanistan. This debate is entirely worth having. Whenever America sends its citizens into harm's way, it must do so with eyes wide open. Though no veteran would ever think of himself as "pro-war," I ...
Continue ReadingOct 29, 2009 18 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
There is no victory in leaving the countryside to the Taliban. Taliban under pressure in Pakistan will use the "free zones" in Afghanistan as haven. Obama does not want to make a decision before the upcoming November elections, and this whole delay, as well as his neutering of McChrystal's request, is designed to ...
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