Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’

Defense Secretary Gates to Retire in 2011

August 16th, 2010 by Nathan Curby

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. (Photo:DoD/Cherie Cullen)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to retire next year, saying he wants to see through the current push in Afghanistan.

In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine published Monday, Gates said he wants to retire before the 2012 presidential election season gets underway. Gates has led the Pentagon through a major shift in overall strategy beginning near the end of the Bush administration and continuing when he agreed to stay on as the defense secretary under President Obama.

Gates says his strategy in Afghanistan was based on watching the Soviet Union fall apart fighting in Afghanistan. “Once the Afghans come to see you as an occupier, you’re toast,” Gates said. But he came to believe that the Soviets failed because they had killed 1 million Afghans and displaced 5 million more, turning the whole country against them. “Clearly,” Gates told FP, “none of that is what we were about in Afghanistan.”

Gates’s new strategy for Afghanistan, championed by former Afghan war commander Stanley McChrystal, is based on the idea of avoiding that fate. McChrystal wanted to add 40,00 troops, but use them as part of a strategy that emphasized building relationships with the locals and giving them control of the situation. That strategy is being carried on by Gen. David Petraeus, McChrystal’s successor.

The FP article continues:

In the end, Obama decided to send 30,000 extra troops (McChrystal had recommended 40,000) and adopt a somewhat scaled-down version of a counterinsurgency strategy, while also beginning to withdraw some of those troops by July 2011. What-if games are dubious enterprises, but it’s not unreasonable to infer that, had Gates come into those meetings as skeptical as he’d been before his summertime conversion, the emerging consensus — and Obama’s decision — might have tilted toward a smaller deployment and a less ambitious strategy.

Today, as the last 10,000 of the “surge” troops arrive in Afghanistan amid growing doubts in Washington and elsewhere about the war, Gates is optimistic that the strategy for Afghanistan will work. McChrystal’s firing did little to change the overall approach because Obama replaced him with Petraeus, who knew the plan and terrain well. “I see the process of transition in Afghanistan being similar to Iraq,” Gates said in our interview, “in which we’re in the lead, then we’re partners [with Afghan security forces], then they’re in the lead, then we’re in tactical overwatch, and then strategic overwatch. And that will take some time.”

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Christian Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan

August 9th, 2010 by Nathan Curby

Ten foreign aid workers, including six Americans, were killed in Afghanistan by militants last week. The Taliban issued a statement saying the medical aid workers were spies proselytizing Christianity. The ten worked for a non-profit Christian organization called International Assistance Mission.

AOL News reports:

Two Afghan translators were also killed with the eight foreign aid workers — three women and five men — whom they’d been helping. Their bodies were found riddled with bullets next to their abandoned vehicles in a mountainous area of Badakhshan province, the provincial police chief toldThe New York Times.

The victims were a group of foreign medical personnel who’d been working at an eye care center in remote Nuristan, and were returning to the Afghan capital when they were ambushed, the International Assistance Mission said in a statement on its website. The charity lost contact with the group on Wednesday evening, and a local shepherd later found their bodies and alerted Afghan police, CNN reported.

“We object to this senseless killing of people who have done nothing but serve the poor. Some of the foreigners have worked alongside the Afghan people for decades,” the IAM statement said, noting that the charity has worked in Afghanistan since 1966, making it the longest-serving NGO there.

This is one of the largest death tolls for foreign aid workers in Afghanistan in a single incident, and the deadliest episode for American civilians there since a suicide bomber killed seven CIA agents at a base in eastern Afghanistan last year. It also underscores the danger for charity workers there, whom the Taliban often view as collaborators with U.S. and NATO forces, rather than humanitarian non-combatants. Earlier this summer, gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the northern Afghan offices of the U.S.-based DAI charity, killing at least five people.

The bodies of the ten workers were flown to Kabul on Sunday.

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Posted in Church & Religion, Terrorism & Persecution | 1 Comment »

Congress Approves War Funding

July 28th, 2010 by Nathan Curby

Pray for safety, success, and mental and emotional strength for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a $58 billion measure to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite growing opposition to the wars among congressional Democrats. The House passed the Senate version of the war funding bill after the Senate rejected tens of billions of dollars in domestic initiatives that the House had included in its original version.

The measure received broad Republican support, with only 12 Republicans voting against it, but 102 Democrats opposed the bill, more than twice the number who voted against a similar measure last year. “What has changed in my mind is I am so discouraged at the chances of our commitment in Afghanistan succeeding that I think it’s time to say, no more,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

The vote seemed to be unaffected by the Sunday release of 91,000 secret documents about the Afghanistan war. The documents, however, gave a voice to opponents of the war who say they paint a picture of a war that is rapidly deteriorating. President Obama argued that the documents did not introduce any new information to the debate,  and that they reinforce his decision to make a change in strategy, sending 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan. The bill passed Tuesday will partially go to pay for those new troops.

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Afghanistan Troop Surge as Petraeus Takes Over

July 6th, 2010 by Nathan Curby

Lt. Col. David Fivecoat, Commander of 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, briefs Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and International Afghan Security Assistance forces in preparation for Operation Iron Oqab VIII (Eagle) at Forward Operating Base Rushmore, Paktika Province, Afghanistan, June 7, 2010. (Photo: U.S. Army/ISAF)

NATO officials said Tuesday that a joint international and Afghan force has captured an Afghan Taliban commander in the southern Helmand province. The leader of the Taliban’s shadow government in the Nawah-ye Barakzai district was captured Monday along with two other insurgents. NATO said other insurgents were captured in separate operations in the eastern Logar and Ghazni provinces.

Gen. David Petraeus arrived in Kabul last week to take over as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the region. Petraeus is taking over for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was forced to resign over critical comments he made about administration officials, which were published in an article in Rolling Stone magazine.

Petraeus, who gave up his post as head of U.S. Central Command to return to the battlefield, was the architect of the troop surge in Iraq that succeeded in bringing down the level of violence. McChrystal had begun to implement a similar strategy in Afghanistan, and Petraeus says he will continue on that path. The last of an additional 30,000 international troops pledged last year are scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in August, bringing the number of international forces there to 150,000. About two-thirds of those will be American troops, the highest level of U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2001.

British troops are set to hand over control of the northern part of Helmand province to U.S. Marines, withdrawing from the area to focus on the central part of the province. Nearly a third of British casualties have happened in the area, which some British soldiers call the most dangerous place in Afghanistan.

June was the deadliest month for NATO forces in the nine-year war, with more than 100 international troops killed.

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Karzai Visits Washington

May 12th, 2010 by Nathan Curby

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai shake hands after meetings at the White House on Wednesday. (photo: AP)

President Obama said Wednesday that accounts of strained relations between U.S. and Afghan leaders were “overstated,” emphasizing the common interest of Washington and Kabul in fighting the Taliban.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai after meeting with him in the White House, Obama stressed his administration’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan’s security, saying that his goal of next summer for a U.S. military withdrawal is only the beginning, not the end. “We are not suddenly as of July 2011 finished with Afghanistan,” Obama said. “This is a long-term partnership.”

Karzai’s visit to Washington is meant to strengthen the relationship between the two nations following public disagreements between them. The U.S. needs a strong tie with Karzai’s administration to be effective in its battle against the Taliban, and Karzai needs the help and support of the U.S. as he seeks to strengthen his government, stabilize the country, and permanently defeat the Taliban.

The meetings are also important in signaling to Pakistan the U.S. commitment to the region. Before escalating its own counter-insurgency campaign, Pakistan wants to see strong evidence that the U.S. will stick with its partners in the Middle East. This is especially critical as officials investigate whether the would-be Times Square bomber received training from the Pakistani  Taliban. Attorney General Eric Holder said he believes the Taliban was “intimately involved” in planning and funding the attack, but others are not so sure, and investigators have not yet produced hard evidence of a connection.

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Iran Expanding Global Influence

March 31st, 2010 by Nathan Curby

As Iran faces more questions over its nuclear program, it is becoming increasingly bold in its position internationally. Seeking to expand its global political and business ties, Tehran is using its vast gas and oil reserves to buy an ear in Moscow, Beijing, and elsewhere.

As Tehran increases its business ties with Russia, it is also looking to assert more influence throughout the Middle East. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has held meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai both in Tehran and Kabul, concerning U.S. officials that Karzai may be too influenced by Iran. Those concerns were heightened when Iran provided a shipment of weapons to fighters in the Kandahar region of Afghanistan.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters on Wednesday that Iran is having an increasing negative influence on Afghanistan. Mullen made the remarks during a trip to Kabul, and said he was “taken aback” by the arms shipment. Mullen said that while Iran’s influence in Afghanistan is growing, it is not as significant as in Iraq, where Iran has been accused of supporting insurgency fighters. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi complained that Tehran was trying to impact the recent elections by inviting all the major parties except for his to Tehran for talks.

And as Iran pushes the limits on its nuclear program, it is relying on business ties with Russia and China to protect it from UN sanctions. A CIA report to Congress said that Tehran is “keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,” and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran is not being clear about its intentions for nuclear development. The CIA report came after the agency gained new insight into Iran’s nuclear program thanks to the defection of a leading Iranian nuclear scientist.

Obama said on Tuesday that he believes he can persuade the UN Security Council to enact strict sanctions against Iran. The U.S. recently scaled back its proposal for sanctions to try to win the support of Russia and China, but Obama administration officials denied that the proposal had been watered down, saying that since a draft resolution had not yet been circulated, it couldn’t have been altered.

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Iraq, Afghanistan veterans face unemployment

February 24th, 2010 by Nathan Curby

Unemployment for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars stood three percentage points above the national rate in January, according to Department of Labor statistics. Those veterans had an unemployment rate of 12.6 percent, compared to 9.7 percent for the nation as a whole.

Joblessness is one of many difficulties facing veterans as they return home. Many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, some are homeless, and all return changed.

Three years ago, IFA’s monthly Prayer Letter featured an article called “Bringing Our Troops All the Way Home.” In it, Chaplain Major John Morris explained Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, a program by the Minnesota National Guard to help soldiers and airmen reintegrate into their communities.

Programs like BTYR are still very important in helping troops returning from deployment, and neeed your prayers and support. Hope for the Heroes is a ministry that sends a daily “message from God” from the Bible to military members via a phone call, text message, email, or facebook message. Their website features stories from veterans who have been impacted by the daily message. “I started to get strength from that little phone call each day to start looking for a job, to move home and to share a little of what was going on in my head,” reads a note from “Jason.”  ”It’s not over. I still have horrible days, but now I have something else to think about besides my time overseas, I have something that gives me hope.”

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