Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: US

US

Petraeus: More myth than man

admin •

Global Post, 16 November 2012 Jean MacKenzie has collected a few opinions – and facts – why Gen Petraeus was over-lionised: According to the New Yorker’s John Lee Abderson ‘lionization by admiring and opportunistic politicians and fawning journalists and biographers has been craven and boundless’.

Recommended Reads Read more

Twelve Veterans Days: Push To Stretch Afghan Presence Ignores Past

admin •

Defense News, 12 November 2012 A very strong, US military soldier’s perspective on the xbox mentality of those wanting to keep troops in Afghanistan post-2014. Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, who has served more than 20 years in the U.S. Army, has been deployed to combat zones four times, twice to Afghanistan, and won the 2012 […]

Recommended Reads Read more

UN-Sanktionen gegen Taliban-Gruppe: Warnsignal für Pakistan

AAN Team •

tageszeitung (Berlin), 7 November 2012 In hi article for the Berlin daily, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig describes the background of the Haqqani network; he sess the newly imposed sanctions as a follow-up to the similar US decision two months earlier, which in turn was imposed on Obama by the Republican-dominated Congress, and will make talks with […]

AAN in the Media Read more

ARTE Journal: US Elections and Afghanistan

AAN Team •

ARTE (French-German TV), 6 November 2012 The evening news draw a balance of Obama’s Afghanistan policy, and AAN’s Gran Hewad is on air, saying that the US have early on given away the chance for an honest state-building process, have practically excluded civil society forces and instead re-empowered people who have committed war crimes (His […]

AAN in the Media Read more

U.S. Finds Graft by Favored Afghan Leader

admin •

Wall Street Journal, 2 November 2012 Some astonishing revelations: The man the US military once thought ‘the best hope for securing Nangarhar province’ (and, as some had the impression, a good president, as well) has been found to be involved in evil things: he ‘has been freeing suspected insurgents, running an open extortion scheme and […]

Recommended Reads Read more

Living in a Minefield: Panjwayi after the US Surge

Borhan Osman •

In the words of one local elder, life in Panjwayi resembles living in a minefield. The district just southwest of Kandahar city has been a major arena for the US troop surge that was ordered in 2009 by President Obama dispatching 33,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. The surge ended in September this year and was […]

War and Peace Read more

Guest Blog: Afghans or Americans on Top? The Future of Special Forces Operations in Afghanistan

Gary Owen •

In July, a new task force combining all international and Afghan special forces under a unified command was set up. Known as the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan (SOJTF-A), it is led by an American general, but its spokesperson told AAN, ‘SOJTF-A does not have command of any Afghan Special Operations Forces, rather, we partner, […]

International Engagement Read more

Converting the Taliban

admin •

Time, 19 October 2012 Air Force Major, who served as an ‘AfPak Hand’ in Helmand supporting the Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Program, thinks out loud. ‘When things are top, down driven you see a lot of hedging type of behavior: “I’ll send six of my young men this way in case this side wins and […]

Recommended Reads Read more

Time to Pack Up

admin •

New York Times, 13 October 2012 In an unusually long editorial, the influential New York Times now takes the position that US troops should withdraw from Afghanistan even before the end of 2014. ‘This conclusion represents a change on our part’, it says. ‘The war in Afghanistan had powerful support at the outset, including ours, […]

Recommended Reads Read more

The ICG Report and the Government’s Search for a New Narrative

Martine van Bijlert •

A report by the International Crisis Group on Afghanistan’s upcoming transition has triggered a hostile response from the Afghan government. The ICG report is described as an attempt to weaken Afghanistan’s resolve in the face of the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership negotiations and as a means to pave the way for foreign interference in the upcoming […]

International Engagement Read more

How Petraeus’s Afghan

admin •

IPS, 10 October 2012 Gareth Porter with a new piece: on how the Taleban’s IED war affected the US troops surge and made it fail finally. With some gruesome statistics about killed and maimed soldiers.

Recommended Reads Read more

Subscribe to receive updates from the Afghanistan Analysts Network

Sign up