As President Obama’s strategy review for Afghanistan commences, let’s hope he’s balancing the information coming to him from his happy-talking generals with some independent news reading of his own. While General David Petraeus serenades the major news media in the United States with the siren song of “progress,” security in Afghanistan is rapidly deteriorating, and [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Hamid Karzai’
Security in Afghanistan Crumbles as Counterinsurgency Fails
Posted: September 12, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: Afghan National Army, Afghanistan, Afghanistan war, anti-war, Army, Brave New Foundation, COIN, corruption, counterinsurgency, failure, Hamid Karzai, Kabul Bank, Kabulbank, military, Obama, Pashtuns, peace, Rethink Afghanistan, strategy review, war in Afghanistan, white house
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Hope?
Posted: November 12, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, Karl Eikenberry, Obama
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. Two very hopeful stories (well, actually one story in two different forms) broke this evening that show that the non-escalation factions in the Obama Administration can play [...]
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 [...]
Where This Is Going
Posted: September 3, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, Hamid Karzai, Rethink Afghanistan
The poisonous tree of counterinsurgency continues to bear fruit in Afghanistan. Reports indicate that tensions are rising over the fraudulent election. The potential for violence is very real. President Karzai’s main opponent in the election, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, has ruled out participation in a unity government and flatly stated he will not accept an election [...]
Meet Your Afghan Warlords, Part Three: Khalili
Posted: September 1, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, Hamid Karzai, Muhammed Karim Khalili
Today’s New York Times article on General McChrystal’s spadework for the next escalation in Afghanistan illustrates the hole we’re in: An expanded American footprint would also increase Mr. Obama’s entanglement with an Afghan government widely viewed as corrupt and illegitimate. The U.S. chose counterinsurgency (COIN) as our strategy for Afghanistan. COIN requires U.S. policymakers to [...]
Compounding the Error
Posted: August 30, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Abdul Rashid Dostum, Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, Hamid Karzai, Mohammed Qasim Fahim
The New York Times pegs the original sin of the U.S. policy in Afghanistan: In hindsight, several current and former administration officials say they have come to believe the decision to turn a blind eye to the warlords and drug traffickers who took advantage of the power vacuum in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, [...]
