Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. Talks between Hamid Karzai and Abdullah broke down today, according to CNN, meaning there will be no power-sharing arrangement to head off a highly problematic runoff vote. [...]
Archive for October, 2009
Abdullah May Boycott the Afghan Runoff Vote
Posted: October 30, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdullah, Afghan elections, Afghanistan, Karzai, Rethink Afghanistan
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Hello, Class!
Posted: October 30, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, ICOS, Rethink Afghanistan, Transparency International
This morning I had the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Earhart’s class at Anderson High School in Austin, Texas, about Afghanistan. I thought I’d post some helpful links, offer some expanded answers and share my presentation file in case anyone wanted it for future reference. First, here’s the presentation in PDF format. A question was [...]
IED Deaths Make October Deadliest Month for U.S. Forces Since Beginning of War in Afghanistan
Posted: October 28, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, casualties, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, IEDs, improvised explosive devices, Rethink Afghanistan, troop deaths
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. Yesterday, October officially became the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the war began. The death toll was pushed over that grim marker by improvised [...]
Lost in the Afghan Labyrinth
Posted: October 28, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abu Muqwama, Afghanistan, Ahmed Wali Kharzai, Andrew Exum, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, COIN, counterinsurgency, Dexter Filkins, Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, Hamid Karzai, Helene Cooper, James Risen, John Kerry, labyrinth, Mark Mazzetti, Michael Flynn, Mohammed Qasim Fahim, Muhammed Karim Khalili, Rethink Afghanistan, Steve Hynd
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. My previous post intentionally left out mentions of Senator John Kerry’s defense of Ahmed Wali Karzai–the drug-dealing, election stealing, possibly Taliban-connected brother of the Afghan president–in an [...]
Senator John Kerry Finds A War With Which He Can Flirt
Posted: October 27, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdullah, Afghanistan, Andrew Wilder, Ann Jones, COIN, counterinsurgency, John Kerry, Karzai, Matthew Hoh, McChrystal, Paul Pillar
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. Senator John Kerry came back from Afghanistan calling President Hamid Karzai a “patriot” and supportive of a plan “closer to McChrystal than to Biden,” meaning he loves [...]
The Tragic Flaw of the Obama Presidency
Posted: October 26, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, Iraq, Jeff Huber, Obama, Pakistan
Jeff Huber’s recent piece describes the “tragic flaw” of the Obama presidency in his recent Antiwar.com piece: Candidate Obama stuck his nose in the wringer when he deflected criticism of his vote against the surge in Iraq by saying it took vital assets away from the effort in Afghanistan, the “war of necessity.” That may [...]
President Obama’s Lonely Walk to the Situation Room
Posted: October 25, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Cesar Chavez, christian realism, Christianity, COIN, counterinsurgency, Gandhi, Jesus, Lilly, Niebuhr, nonviolence, Obama, Rethink Afghanistan, serenity prayer, Sermon on the Mount
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. “It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals.” –M.K. [...]
Hope Springs Eternal for Second-Chance Bruce
Posted: October 21, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Bruce Riedel
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. Bruce Riedel, the chair of one of the many Obama policy reviews on Afghanistan, is ridiculous. Here he is discussing pre-election optimism in [...]
The Winner of the Afghan Election: Electoral Fraud
Posted: October 21, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdullah, Afghanistan, COIN, counterinsurgency, Karzai, McChrystal, Nagl, Petraeus, Rethink Afghanistan, U.S. Army, U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. All hail the birth of Afghan democracy! The willingness of Americans to allow our political leaders to spend $1 million per troop, per [...]
Politics in Afghanistan: Karzai Folds #afghan09
Posted: October 20, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdullah, Afghan election, Afghanistan, COIN, counterinsurgency, Karzai, Rethink Afghanistan, STRATFOR
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. According to the New York Times and CNN, Senator John Kerry and U.S. Ambassador Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry have prevailed upon Afghan President [...]
