This past summer, WikiLeaks, an on-line source of anonymous whistle-blower revelations, unveiled damning information about the war in Afghanistan and its “official portrayal.” Sidebar revelations also cast doubt on Pakistan’s alliance with the United States, charging Pakistani intelligence agencies with “aiding insurgents.” Pakistan and the United States forcefully denied any chink in their “strategic partnership.”
Ambition on the part of Gen. Petraeus may have blinded him to truth that Taliban impostor was too good to be true.
Even at its most successful, a military-led counterinsurgency campaign remains inherently unsustainable.
Why is the U.S. launching an offensive in Kandahar just as the process of bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table is gaining momentum?
Wars are rarely lost in a single encounter; Defeat is almost always more complex than that. The United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have lost the war in Afghanistan, but not just because they failed in the battle for Marjah or decided that discretion was the better part of valor in Kandahar. They lost the war because they should never have invaded in the first place; because they never had a goal that was achievable; because their blood and capital are finite.
The Times claims that Pakistan’s inequitable tax system helps drive the insurgency, but offers no proof.
Some CIA officers involved in the agency’s drone strikes program in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to the program within the agency, because it is helping al Qaeda and its allies recruit.
Yesterday was almost equally violent for both India, where suspected sabotage of train by Maoists left at least 74 dead in West Bengal, and Pakistan. In Lahore, an equivalent number were killed in the attacks on the two Ahmadi mosques. According to the New York Times: “Geo TV, a leading news channel in Pakistan, reported that members of the Punjab branch of the Pakistani Taliban were claiming responsibility for the attacks.”
People tend to balk at pressure. Isn’t it time to find an alternative to deadlines and timelines?
The competing assertions about Times Square-bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad’s links relationship with Pakistani Taliban reflects a broader debate both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and Pakistan over how to handle Taliban elements in Waziristan province.