Posted By David DeGraw, Filed under War Watch .
Here’s the AmpedStatus round-up of the best reporting on President Obama’s new Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) strategy.
We divided the coverage into the following categories – click on the headings below to jump to individual sections:
• Obama’s Plan • Critique of Plan • Fearing Friends: Mercenaries and Pakistan’s ISI • Context & Background • Alternative Plan • View From Afghanistan • Anti-War Movement • Closing Thought
Before diving into the serious reporting on this issue, let’s start with a little informative comic relief…
Redefinition Accomplished
The Obama administration puts a pretty new name on the war on terror. =======
OBAMA’S PLAN
Obama Announcement of New Afghanistan, Pakistan Strategies
White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group’s Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan Objectives
Achieving our core goal is vital to U.S. national security. It requires, first of all, realistic and achievable objectives. These include:
• Disrupting terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks.
• Promoting a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan that serves the Afghan people and can eventually function, especially regarding internal security, with limited international support.
• Developing increasingly self-reliant Afghan security forces that can lead the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight with reduced U.S. assistance.
• Assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunity for the people of Pakistan.
• Involving the international community to actively assist in addressing these objectives for Afghanistan and Pakistan, with an important leadership role for the UN. [ Read PDF Report Here]
Obama Afghan strategy not just about bullets, bombs
Dismissing past aid efforts as ill-organized and underfunded, it calls for a civilian surge in Afghanistan to match the military one as well as for a 7.5 billion dollar development plan and special economic zones for Pakistan.
“We need agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers,” Obama said. “That’s how we can help the Afghan government serve its people and develop an economy that isn’t dominated by illicit drugs.”
Proceeds from opium poppy sales, officials say, fuel the Taliban insurgency against the US-backed government in Kabul of President Hamid Karzai….
Over six years the Bush administration gave more than 10 billion dollars, in both military and economic aid, to Pakistan under the rule of President Pervez Musharraf, a general who seized power in a military coup in October 1999. [Continue Reading]
Afghanistan war needs more time, money
The situation in Afghanistan is dire, and progress will demand a substantial and sustained commitment, military leaders told Congress Wednesday, as they laid out more details of the Obama administration’s new strategy for the war….
Defense leaders did not detail what the budget request would be, but said a key element will be the fund to train Pakistani forces in counterinsurgency operations that would target al-Qaida safe havens along the ungoverned Afghan border. [Continue Reading]'
Lees verder: http://ampedstatus.com/afghanistan-20-afpak-overseas-contingency-operation
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