attackerman.firedoglake.com - 12/26/2008
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The portrait of 2009’s passel of counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan is becoming clearer. Bolster troop levels . Recruit tribal militias to battle extremists , in a second-time-as-farce version of Iraq’s Anbar Awakening. Mitigate increasing distance with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in ...
longwarjournal.org - 12/28/2008
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longwarjournal.org —
Taliban suicide bombers struck on both sides of
the Durand Line, killing 51 and wounding score more...
in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The suicide attack in Pakistan took place in the settled district of Buner in the insurgency-infested Northwest ...
(more)
Taliban suicide bomber strike in Pakistan, Afghanistan
apnews.myway.com - 12/21/2008
foxnews.com - 12/28/2008
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foxnews.com —
First lady Laura Bush said she was offended
by the recent "assault" on her husband, who had...
two shoes thrown at him during a recent visit to Iraq. At the same time, however, she said the assault shows that Iraqis feel a lot freer than they did before. ...
(more)
First Lady: Shoe 'Assault' Shows Freedom in Iraq - ...
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Blog Reactions
Finally
Rising Hegemon —
The Taliban faces stiff opposition!
Innovation in Counterinsurgency
Matthew Yglesias —
Via Spencer Ackerman, this is definitely clever:
For some U.S. operatives in Afghanistan, Western drugs such as Viagra were just part of a long list of enticements available for use in special cases. Two veteran officers familiar with such practices said Viagra was offered rarely, and only to older tribal officials for whom the drug would hold special appeal. While such sexual performance drugs are generally unavailable in the remote areas where the agency’s teams operated, they have been sold in some Kabul street markets since at least 2003 and ...
When Is Prescription Drug Abuse Okay?
Comments from Left Field —
... crucial battles in Afghanistan are fought and won. While the CIA has a long history of buying information with cash, the growing Taliban insurgency has prompted the use of novel incentives and creative bargaining to gain support in some of the country’s roughest neighborhoods, according to officials directly involved in such operations.
I have a question: Does anyone besides me think this is wrong?
Apparently not:
Spencer Ackerman:
… This is a really good idea, isn’t ...
Afghan Viagra and Child Slavery: The Washington Post Misses the Irony. Again.
Firedoglake —
... are doing their jobs while assuring that the stories die with little to no coverage.
Yesterday's (December 26) Washington Post had two front page stories that fit this template. The irony is because on the web site, they were on top of each other, with no one apparently thinking about the appearance and connection.
The first story was how the CIA has been providing Viagra to warlords to get them on "our" side. Spencer hit on this over at Attackerman but I wanted to point this little nugget out: ...
Related Content
What, I Was Serious?
windsofchange.net 1/15/2009 — I saw this the other day, and waited for it to get picked up and commented on. It wasn't, so I'll raise it here.
Here's Spencer Ackerman writing in the Washington Independent :
Today a cohort of progressive bloggers unveils a new effort against ...
Get Afghanistan Right
dailykos.com 1/13/2009 — An ad hoc group of bloggers has come together for the purpose of opposing a U.S.-led escalation in Afghanistan that is slated to double the number of American troops there. Organized by Alex Thurston at The Seminal and Robert Greenwald's ...
GetAfghanistanRight.com
washingtonindependent.com 1/12/2009 — Today a cohort of progressive bloggers unveils a new effort against the planned 20,000-troop increase of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. A website called GetAfghanistanRight, set up by bloggers at the Seminal and Brave New Films — and with the ...
Getting Afghanistan Right
agonist.org 1/14/2009 — Memo to President-Elect Obama:
"Now it is folly to go against men who could not be kept under even if conquered, while failure would leave us in a very different position from that which we occupied before the enterprise."
Thucydides, VI, 11. ...
Afghanistan is NOT the Good War
thewashingtonnote.com 12/14/2008 —
I will write much more about this subject in coming days, but I am increasingly worried about the framing that America's next President and his team are applying to Iraq and Afghanistan.
To be blunt, they have been arguing that "Iraq was the ...
Afghanistan: "The opposite of everything we consider to be democracy"
newshoggers.com 12/23/2008 — By Cernig
Sarah Chayes went to Afghanistan to report for National Public Radio just a few weeks after 9/11, then stayed to become one of the few Westerners running a business there. In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post she wrote that the big ...
Thoughts on Afghanistan
corner.nationalreview.com 1/30/2009 — The Democrats, and President Obama in particular, have backed themselves into a corner in Afghanistan. For several years the Afghan effort served as the rhetorical counterpoint to the war in Iraq; since they did not want to support "Bush's War," it ...
Today in Afghanistan
swampland.blogs.time.com 2/13/2009 — Max Boot makes some good points along the way to an extremely faulty conclusion in his Washington Post op-ed piece supporting Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan today. The good points are essentially strawmen, though. He's absolutely right ...
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