Good news is in short supply. The economy remains bleak. The war in Iraq entered its seventh year last week, and violence reaches new pinnacles in Afghanistan. But there is one bright light amid all this gloom. Real progress is being made to ban
While there is no doubt that President Barack Obama is winning hearts around world, the jury is still out on whether he can convince skeptical intellectuals. A surge in Afghanistan, residual troops in Iraq and the resumption of renditions in the Horn of Africa conjure up fears of quagmires.
Sometimes, it’s the everyday things, the ones that fly below the radar, that matter.
In 1995, Sakena Yacoobi cofounded the Afghan Institute for Learning (AIL) — today one of the largest nonprofit organizations in Afghanistan — and is now its president and executive director. AIL provides education and health services to over 350,000 women and children annually in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with offices in the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Sakena has received numerous prestigious awards for peace-building, including the Peacemakers in Action Award from the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, the Gruber Prize, the Bill Graham Award from the Rex Foundation, and most recently, the Kravis Prize for Leadership.
One of the first difficult foreign policy decisions of the Obama administration will be what the United States should do about Afghanistan. Escalating the war, as National Security Advisor Jim Jones has been encouraging, will likely make matters worse. At the same time, simply abandoning the country — as the United States did after the overthrow of Afghanistan’s Communist government soon after the Soviet withdrawal 20 years ago — would lead to another set of serious problems.
Last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates briefed President Barack Obama on Afghanistan and the Pentagon’s proposal to send 15,000 more troops there by late spring. Obama is expected to accept the plan as a "down payment" on his pledge during the campaign to put more troops into the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents. These troops are only about half the number requested by the field commanders, and Gates will return with a new request soon.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Aaron Glantz’s The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle against America’s Veterans (University of California Press). Tragically, the death described here occurred nearly six months after the Walter Reed Scandal broke.
Every war has a story line. World War I was Âthe war to end all wars. World War II was Âthe war to defeat fascism.Â
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Geneva accords that facilitated the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. On April 14, 1988, in Geneva, representatives of the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan signed three bilateral agreements intended to end the war in Afghanistan. These agreements addressed the principles of mutual relations, in particular non-interference and non-intervention as well as the voluntary return of Afghan refugees.
One battle rarely wins or loses a war, at least in the moment. Gettysburg crippled Lee’s army in 1863, but the Confederates fought on until 1865. Stalingrad broke the back of the German 6th Army, but it would be two-and-a-half years before the Russians took Berlin. War – particularly the modern variety – is a complex mixture of tactics, technology, and politics. Then there are the intangibles, like morale.