The International Crisis Group (ICG) released a new paper on Afghanistan’s judiciary sytem, its faults, failures and the way back to institutional legitimacy and stability. Please find the executive summary here. However, I highly recommend that you read the paper that you’ll find here, in PDF format. In the meantime, here’s a taste: The legal […]
The news of reconciliation in Afghanistan is nothing less than three-headed Cerberus, internally conflicted and unruly. One head: the Karzai story, pushed about in the major media outlets, that NATO is helping broker preliminary, testy, exchanges that might well precede a contested power-sharing agreement. The second, reported by the BBC is that the Taliban are […]
The Asia Foundation recently released a massive report on the views of the Afghan people. The report titled ‘Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People‘ is over 200 pages and features Afghan replies to numerous questions about the state of their country and lives. Below is a chart of the overall national temperature […]
The New York Times’ journalism on Afghanistan is nothing short of a heroic record. Consider Dexter Filkin’s investigative journalism and then, think no more. But today, the series of photographs and story it published on the endemic incidence of self-immolation among women in Afghanistan is something beyond note, and approbation. It is revelatory and within […]
I’d written earlier with some thoughts on how to cut apart the Taliban in Afghanistan from their Al Qaeda counterparts. Broadly, I’d argued that one needed to separate out the incentives and motivations (en bloc) of the Taliban from their foreign, multi-national, globalist counterparts. Separated out– as hanafis (nationalist jihadis) and salafis (globalist jihadis)– NATO […]
It was obvious a year ago that the 2010 midterms were going to be about domestic issues, specifically the economy, jobs, and health care. But it was hard to predict just how little foreign policy, the Afghanistan war included, would play in this political season. The war in Afghanistan has to be considered the top […]
My colleagues Pat Frost and Rob Grace ( over at the Law and Security Strategy blog) and I have written extensively on why the situation in Afghanistan looks grim. The war there is a long haul; the Karzai government is corrupt, a two-timing, untrustworthy thing; viable solutions to the conflict in Afghanistan require negotiated international […]
The story of US/Karzai government negotiations with members of the Taliban have already taken so many twists (mostly rhetorical rather than substantive) that one should not feel ashamed to be confused as to what exactly is going on between the two warring parties. One second the Obama administration admits (Gates) to ongoing negotiations and the […]
Well now. This isn’t good. The Karzai Administration is taking in more than $1 million a year off the books from Iran’s government to pay for presidential expenses. The Chief of Staff is taking in the cash, no doubt helping Mr. Karzai pay for his lavishly, handsomely decorated, pain-stakingly made shawls. Some of it goes […]
My hometown paper, the San Diego Union Tribune, has been running a series of reports about the US war effort in Afghanistan that have provided a real service to our community. The weekly reports may not be groundbreaking, but they have provided its readers with a more in depth view of the situation, especially in […]
NATO’s Afghanistan force ISAF has been strategically bombing rushedly discovered Taliban and Al Qaeda locations for some time now. This scaled up move is designed to get the Taliban leadership to the negotiating table. No doubt, apart from major disruptive turns away from the chosen path, the strategy is understood to be working. ISAF is […]
The War in Afghanistan has fallen off the American’s people’s radar. It raises the question: was it ever on the people’s radar–that is after the hooooohaaahhh of ramped up, spoon fed nationalism faded to the recyclable detritus of our ill-appreciated commuter lives. Yes. From 2001 until 2007, one might do well to vaguely recall the […]
Benjamin Domenech at Real Clear World’s ‘The Compass‘ blog produced this interesting piece on Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak’s efforts to bring a moderate form of Islam to Afghanistan. Here’s an excerpt: It was on this day in 2001 that the United States and Britain launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which seems as proper […]
Bob Woodward has been flying about D.C talking up his book, “Obama’s Wars”. And for good reason. He’s leveling very serious arguments against President Obama’s handling of the War in Afghanistan. He has already talked up a storm with Larry King. Now he’s delivered quite a few blows to the White House during a conversation […]
In his interview with Larry King, journalist Bob Woodward has come out and said outright that Colin Powell is the best candidate for Secretary of Defense after Robert Gates steps down from that role in 2011. General Powell, as Woodward has pointed out numerous times, is a walking embodiment of the history of American wars […]