Janet Napolitano says the system worked. No, we were brave and lucky.
A U.S. government that has barred the phrase “war on terror” has nonetheless acknowledged that a failed Christmas day bomb attack on an airliner was a terrorist attempt. Can we all now drop the pretense that we stopped fighting a war once Dick Cheney and George W. Bush left the White House?
Britain has been accused of being a “menace to the outside world” as American anger over the UK’s perceived failure to tackle Islamic extremism intensified.
Senior policymakers in the United States said the attempted suicide bomb attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is thought to have become radicalised in London, was further evidence that one of the biggest threats to US security came from Britain, where the capital has been dubbed “Londonistan” by critics.
Originally published Monday, September 14, 2009
Some questions and answers about the Afghanistan war, the U.S. strategy and the choices facing a president who already has doubled the…
By ANNE GEARAN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Some questions and answers about the Afghanistan war, the U.S. strategy and the choices facing a president who already has doubled the number of Americans fighting in Afghanistan since taking office:
Q: Why is the United States still fighting in Afghanistan?
The Conservative government was aware from the first day it took office in 2006 that Taliban suspects, rounded up by Canadian soldiers, might be tortured in Afghan prisons, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
The government then waited 15 months, until May 2007, before putting new safeguards in place to monitor the treatment of Afghan detainees.
“I’m not suggesting that we have not heard serious allegations from the moment we took office. I’m not suggesting that prison conditions in Afghan jails are anything to behold,” said MacKay on Sunday, in response to reporters’ questions about allegations of torture and mistreatment of Taliban suspects, an issue that is expected to dominate Parliament this week.
In Tuesday night’s Presidential address on prime time television, Obama said he would send more troops to Afghanistan and toughened his stand on the issue, this in spite of his Nobel Peace prize. But, he gets a rally of support from across the world
More troops in Afghanistan
Obama announced he would deploy additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in the coming months.
He vowed to start bringing American forces back home in the mid 2011, saying US could not afford and should not have to shoulder an open-ended commitment.
President Barack Obama’s speech commits the US to very different core objectives from the goals of the original invasion in 2001. Under his plan, US troops will seek to insulate cities and towns from Taliban attacks to ensure the movement cannot sweep back to power. But he also left the door open for a rehabilitation of the more nationalist elements by telling Afghans that America had no long-term interest in occupying their country.
President Barack Obama ordered a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan but made clear that his appetite for the conflict was finite when he finally unveiled his new strategy. After three months of deliberation, 36 intelligence reports and nearly as many leaks, the president told cadets at the West Point military academy on Tuesday night his new policy was designed to “bring this war to a successful conclusion”.
US forces had Osama Bin Laden “within their grasp” in Afghanistan in late 2001, a US Senate report says.
It says calls for US reinforcements were rejected, allowing the al-Qaeda leader to “walk unmolested” into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal areas.
The report was prepared by the Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff.
It says the failure to kill or capture Bin Laden had far-reaching consequences and laid the foundation for the protracted Afghan insurgency.
The report comes as President Barack Obama prepares to announce a long-awaited decision on sending troop reinforcements to Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of US troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when US military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.
The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden’s escape laid the foundation for today’s reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
First published on 18th November 2009
President Barack Obama has declared for the first time that his review of policy in Afghanistan will contain an exit strategy designed to avoid a “multiyear occupation”. Speaking as Western leaders gathered in Kabul for Thursday’s swearing-in of President Hamid Karzai Mr Obama said his announcement would give a strong sense of how and when troop involvement there will cease.
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