Pakistani Consulate bombed;
NATO Commander in Afghanistan Calls for More Troops;
Strikes same Notes as Obama
Bomb blast outside Pakistani consulate at Herat wounds one.
Aljazeera International interviews Gen. David McKiernan, who sounds to me just like Barack Obama on Afghanistan-- saying that he doesn't have enough troops in Afghanistan, that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are resurgent, and that the big problem is Taliban sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
"General David McKiernan, commander of the Nato led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, says his biggest problem is Taliban infiltration from across the border in Pakistan... "
Compare his comments to Obama's Berlin speech concerning Afghanistan.
Two perspectives on Afghanistan:
Michael Scheuer, the former CIA head of the 'tracking Bin Laden unit', which Bush has now disbanded.
And from the left, , Sonali Kolhatkar of the US-based Afghan Women's Mission.
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/31/2008 12:23:00 PM
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8 Comments:
Good video links.
Pretty sad when I get better war coverage (featuring the US/Nato commander) on Jazeera, than from US channels and dailies. (Are you folks in the network/WaPo/NYT echo chamber listening?)
The self-aware critique of eurobama coverage and the candidate's strong defense' posture is superier in breadth and depth, less certain and didactic than US coverage.
For instance, commentators ask 'what kind of war is Obama hoping to send more of our troops into?' They engage Obama's move to the AIPAC side of the Palestine issue. Uncertainty, nuance, message and agenda aren't burried in brevity.
They address serious differences without povich-esque shouting matches. They speak English! And we don't even have to spend our deflated money on travel to see that a free press CAN work. Reportage can raise political sport above the point spread, to a level of intelligent conversation!
Web tip for Informed Comment fans:
By viewing from the link instead of the video imbedded here in IC, I can scan other related topic videos at Utube. I want to thank the IC web elves working with Prof. Cole, for giving me that option play.
Barack Obama has made Afghanistan safe for an indefinite war, to be cheered on by assorted Europeans, and there is barely a whisper from what I had hoped too months ago might finally be an American peace movement. This is disgraceful.
How am I supposed to vote for Obama?
There we have these years of war in Afghanistan, but the problem of course is not having done war right all these years, so now we will do war right (as though there could really be a right way to do war) and insure indefinitely more misery for Afghans. Iraq was never enough, so we can turn to a country far larger in territory, and far tougher in territory, with millions more people and far poorer than Iraq, a country bordering extensively on a significantly sympathetic territory and people in Pakistan where Iraq's borders have actually meant little beyond a refuge for the displaced.
I am not pleased with Barack Obama's stance, no matter the supposed election toughness needs.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/07/american-forces-now-hold-about-22000.html
July 31, 2008
"American forces now hold about 22,000 Iraqi detainees at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and Camp Bucca, near the Kuwait-Iraq border. While the vast majority will never be charged under Iraqi law because there is not enough evidence to bring them to trial, the American military says that about a third remain security risks." *
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html
-- As'ad AbuKhalil
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/07/wake-up_31.html
July 31, 2008
New York Times *
[Picture]
Wake up. They came to "liberate" the hell out of you.
* http://bp0.blogger.com/_O5OuU90ru-Y/SJHoSribfUI/AAAAAAAABrI/3qKk6Gn4tS4/s1600-h/1008MA1.jpg
-- As'ad AbuKhalil
The problem with touting Afganistan as a war is that it's not really our war anymore. We long ago gave up chasing Al Queda, and that was our only legitimate reason for being in Afganistan in the first place.
We have no legitimate stake in a border war between Pakistan and Afganistan, beyond our interest in peace as a member of the UN.
Afganistan and Iraq are, in my view, classic examples of mission creep. No one can state anymore just exactly what we are supposedly trying to accomplish in either country.
The choice is effectively in the presidential election, given the voting system, either McCain or Obama. Their respective policy positions in relation to Afghanistan reflects their advisers. So it seems to me important to critique this advice, or risk ending up with the same old repackaged narrative with limited options of more endless, futile, violence and attempted domination.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said CentCom's strategic troops reserves would not be mobilized to Afghanistan, despite Barack or the General's pleading. See Morrell's press talk on 7-29.
He said they needed to stay in Kuwait given the "general unstable nature of the region". Or to contain blowback from Iran after Israel's pre-emptive strike?
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