This Wall Street Journal story by Siobhan Gorman details the influential position of a CIA chief inside of the Karzai administration in Kabul. The piece is worthwhile reading for its insight into the Obama administration’s Afghan teams layout and method for working with the at times, volatile, President Karzai. President Obama’s administration’s relationship with Karzai has seen […]
Just a couple items and recommendations: First, I highly recommend checking out this the first part of the New York Times coverage of the deployment of the First Battalion, 87th Infantry. The Times will follow this battalion for the next year as they head to the increasingly restive provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan in Afghanistan’s […]
Here are a few observations from Michael Hasting’s Rolling Stone article Obama-McChrystal seemed to be on same page in terms of actual Afghanistan war strategy/policy – This has been an underreported aspect of the whole incident. McChrystal and his aides were mainly critiquing (if ‘bite me’ is a critique) the political process and not the […]
President Obama did as good a job as was possible in his short speech to the country on Gen. McChrystal’s dismissal and the placement of Gen. Petraeus as the leader of all foreign military forces in Afghanistan. In his talk, President Obama emphasized that this was a change in military leadership and not one of […]
Afghanistan is so boring to cover. Sometimes I just sit at my desk screaming in my head ‘SOMETHING HAPPEN ALREADY!!!’ So Gen. McChrystal is now a goner and Gen. Petraeus is back to save the day yet again. Anyway you cut it, this is a sad situation that can only make a difficult situation even […]
Michael Hastings’s article about Gen. McChrystal and the Afghanistan war effort has not only created quite a stir, but may even cost Gen. McChrystal his job as the leader of all armed forces in Afghanistan. While, I will write more on this important story tonight, I’ll give a few thoughts now. First off, I think […]
When President Obama announced that he was sending an additional 30,000 American troops to work under Gen. McChrystal’s leadership in Afghanistan, his very next sentence stated that US forces would be starting a withdrawal 18 months later on July 2011. I was critical of this at the time and still am. The US and the […]
In what will surely go down as one of the most important moves made possible by the American troop surge and shift to Gen. McChrystal’s COIN/Special Operations strategy, thousands of American, British soldiers, partnered with thousands more Afghan troops, are as we speak attempting to dislodge the Taliban from one of their strongest home bases […]
In his report to the President this summer, Gen. McChrystal stated that he thought the war in Afghanistan was winnable, but if things did not change quickly, it would be lost. McChrystal has now been handed nearly 100,000 American troops, along with thousands more NATO and Afghan partners, and given about a year to show […]
There have been growing signals, some blatant, that the Obama administration is looking for a way out of Afghanistan, even as they are still in the process of deciding on a new strategy, which is likely to involve the deployment of thousands more American and NATO troops. It of course is prudent for the US […]
In the past week or so there have been growing signs that the Obama administration is likely to choose an Afghan strategy closer to McChrystal’s counterinsurgency plan than VP Joe Biden’s counterterrorism stance. However, most of these signs do not come directly from the administration as they have been rather tight-lipped and mainly just voiced […]
Dexter Filkins’ recent NYTimes magazine piece is lengthy but worth reading. Filkins, a veteran war correspondent for the NYTimes, is adept at story-telling and doesn’t disappoint in this article. With his familiar, almost folksy, tone of writing, Filkins draws a vivid picture of the American war in Afghanistan: “The Marines around McChrystal, including the local […]
Dexter Filkins’ ‘Stanley McChrystal’s Long War‘ is an excellent profile of America’s top commander in Afghanistan and clearly showcases the challenges of going ‘all-in’ and ‘getting out’. McChrystal comes off as vibrant, smart, and worthy General, but the task ahead of him is depicted as seemingly insurmountable. Here are some choice bits… McChrystal on counterinsurgency: […]
It appears that journalist Bob Woodward has the scoop again on the Obama administration’s next moves in Afghanistan. Well, I guess that’s not really accurate, as Woodward really has just broken the story of the Obama administration’s ‘plans’ for how they are going to decide their next moves in the war in Afghanistan. All of […]
It’s Out. The Cat and Gen. McChrystal’s Afghan Strategy and Resource Recommendations to President Obama. While I safely got my cat Chuck back into the house, the Obama administration cannot put McChrystal’s report, which calls for thousands of more troops or the US mission in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure”, back in its envelope. […]