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. If Matthew Hoh could tell you one thing to help you understand the U.S.’s predicament in Afghanistan, he’d tell you: The presence of our ground combat troops [...]
Posts Tagged ‘al-Qaida’
An Interview with Matthew Hoh
Posted: November 21, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, al-Qaida, COIN, counterinsurgency, Karl Eikenberry, Matthew Hoh, Rethink Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, Taliban
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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 [...]
SecDef. Robert Gates & Friends Think Al-Qaida Has a Commitment to Truth
Posted: October 17, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Adam Rawnsley, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, COIN, counterinsurgency, propaganda, Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Gates, safe havens, Taliban
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. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is showing his Bush Administration credentials by tossing around any and all justifications for continued U.S. military action in Afghanistan [...]
Al-Qaida Doesn’t Need Your Stupid Safe Havens
Posted: October 16, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, COIN, counterinsurgency, McChrystal, networks, Paul Pillar, Rethink Afghanistan, scale-free networks
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. As the president and his war council (Pollyanna asks: never a peace council?) meet to finalize the latest most updated new new new [...]
Cursing the Darkness
Posted: October 14, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, Foreign Policy Magazine, landmines, Michael Scheuer, Pakistan, Rethink Afghanistan, Taliban
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. At least Michael Scheuer’s snarling, morally bankrupt piece (oddly promoted as the front-page story on Foreign Policy Magazine‘s website) correctly diagnoses the problem [...]
Quetta and Meltdown: U.S. AfPak Policy Visits Crazy Town
Posted: September 28, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, Andrew Exum, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, counterinsurgency, drones, Joshua Foust, Kilcullen, Pakistan, Quetta Shura, Taliban
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. You can learn more about the dangers posed to U.S. national security by the war in Afghanistan by watching Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six): Security, or by visiting http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. Apparently I underestimated the U.S. government’s capacity for crazy. Last week, I [...]
Dick Holbrooke took some time on August 12 to let us know that there is no Afghanistan strategy. The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Wednesday that while American forces have been making progress in the region it is still too early to tell what success might look like. “We’ll know it [...]
Use of Drones in Pakistan Violates Christian Doctrine on War
Posted: July 8, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: al-Qaida, Christianity, civilian casualties, drones, Jesus, just war tradition, nonviolence, Pakistan, Taliban
Christians–whether we are adherents of just war tradition or of Christian nonviolence–should not support U.S. policies that kill civilians indiscriminately. However, in the past six days, our government has intensified a policy that does exactly that. The number of suspected U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have spiked dramatically since Friday, July 3, with four strikes [...]
Contesting Jihad within Islam: The Servants of God
Posted: June 11, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Afghanistan, al-Qaida, Islam, Khudai Khidmatgars, Muslim, nonviolence, Obama, Servants of God, Taliban
Advocates for increased focus on strategic communications want the U.S. to support voices within Islam that contest al-Qaida’s religious justification of political violence. Opining about peace passages in the Koran is insufficient, however; the version of Islam pushed by the Taliban and al-Qaida is place- and nationality-specific, and their propaganda is buttressed by continued U.S. [...]
