Newsletter

1. ASG Weekly Reader: The Drawdown Begins

   Published: July 21st, 2011
   

   The drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has begun. Over the past week the first group of American soldiers have departed and they will not be replaced by a fresh unit.  Although, the House may not have gotten the memo, as last week they voted to increase the military budget by $17 billion for a grand total of $649 billion dollars. The Department of Defense continues to be immune from budget cuts as the rest of the country tries to figure out how to do more with less. There is some good news coming out of Afghanistan, however, amid the escalating violence on the boarders and high profile political assassinations in the interior; the snow leopards appear to be flourishing.

   FROM ASG

   U.S. Adventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time”
   Afghanistan Study Group by Edward Kenney
   Sometimes what seems like good policy at first can turn out to be a bad idea with the benefit of hindsight.  The support for Mujahidin leaders such as Hekmatyar and Haqqani seemed like a great idea in the 1980s when they were fighting the Soviets.  Now that these figures make up key parts of the Afghan insurgency…not so much.

   ARTICLES

   7-8-11
   House boosts military budget in time of austerity
   msnbc.com by Donna Cassata
   On a 336-87 vote Friday, the Republican-controlled House overwhelmingly backed a $649 billion defense spending bill that boosts the Defense Department budget by $17 billion. The strong bipartisan embrace of the measure came as White House and congressional negotiators face an Aug. 2 deadline on agreeing to trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts and raising the borrowing limit so the U.S. does not default on debt payments.

   7-9-11
   Porous and Violent, Afghan-Tajik Border Is a Worry for the U.S.
   New York Times by Michael Schwirtz
   Such kidnappings, along with murders, armed clashes and other violence, have become persistent features of life along Tajikistan’s extensive border with Afghanistan. A largely unprotected expanse of severe peaks and dusty plains, the border is practically all that separates the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and beyond from the chaos of one of the world’s most war-ravaged countries. Securing it and the smaller borders with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has taken on greater urgency as American forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan.

   7-11-11
   Pakistan’s rocket fire into Afghanistan alarms locals, US forces
   The Christian Science Monitor
   While Afghan and US officials are in talks with Pakistan to end the strikes on militants, US soldiers experiencing the direct effects of the artillery fire are caught in an uncomfortable middle ground. Commanders say the longer it takes to find a solution, the greater the risk of fueling the insurgency and alienating locals from the Afghan government.

   7-12-11
   Who Killed Ahmed Wali Karzai?
   Foreign Policy by Matthiew Aikins
   The manner of Ahmed Wali’s death is all the more striking considering that the last major figure to be assassinated in Kandahar, Police Chief Khan Mohammed Mujahed, was killed by own his bodyguard-turned-suicide-bomber in April. In May, one of the most important anti-Taliban commanders in northern Afghanistan, Gen. Daud Daud, was assassinated by a bomb planted in the Takhar’s governor’s office; and last October, Engineer Omar, governor of Kunduz, was blown up by a bomb planted in the floor of the mosque where he habitually prayed.

   7-13-11
   Kandahar: Afghanistan’s turbulent province
   BBC News
   It has often been said that whoever controls Kandahar controls Afghanistan. During the past five years, the province has seen heavy fighting between Nato and the Taliban – most of the 30,000 troops deployed by US President Barack Obama in his surge of 2009 have been stationed there.

   7-14-11
   Afghanistan’s civilians in the crosshairs
   Foreign Policy by Erica Gaston
   The United Nations semi-annual protection of civilians report released Thursday is a chilling rebuttal to illusions that Afghanistan is moving toward greater stability. With nearly 3,600 killed and injured – the highest civilian casualty rate since the war began – the statistics are a grim reality check to over-optimistic reports by international military and civilian leaders that their strategy is successfully disrupting insurgent activities.

   7-15-11
   Mullah Omar, headscarves and bizarre Afghan peace talks
   Reuters by Jonathon Burch
   Homa Sultani, a former rights activist and now an MP from Ghazni, a volatile province southwest of Kabul, said she had met the reclusive Omar some 150 km (90 miles) from the capital and that they had wept together after deliberating the country’s plight.

   First US troops leave Afghanistan as drawdown begins
   AFP by Claire Truscott
   The first American soldiers of about 10,000 due to leave Afghanistan this year have flown home, military officials said Friday, kicking off a gradual drawdown due to be completed in 2014. US President Barack Obama in June announced that 33,000 American troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer, leaving behind 65,000 and effectively ending a military surge ordered into the country late 2009.
   
   7-17-11
   Gunmen kill adviser to Afghan president in another strike at leader’s inner circle
   The Washington Post by AFP
   Gunmen strapped with explosives killed a close adviser to President Hamid Karzai and a member of parliament on Sunday in another insurgent strike against the Afghan leader’s inner circle.  Jan Mohammed Khan was an adviser to Karzai on tribal issues and was close to the president, a fellow Pashtun.

   OPINION

   7-12-11
   Ahmed Wali Karzai Assassinated
   The Atlantic by Steve Clemons
   Watching on a long flight the other day the classic 1966 Sergio Leone spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly I couldn’t help but think that Afghanistan would make a great backdrop for a remake of the Clint Eastwood classic. I’m not sure whether Kandahar region ‘super governor’ Ahmed Wali Karzai would have been cast as “The Bad” or “The Ugly”, but the half brother of Afghanistan’s President — shot dead today by a family bodyguard — was no force of noble spirit.

   7-14-11
   The American Fantasy of Irreversible Victory
   The National interest by Paul Pillar
   Living in a peculiarly powerful and successful republic makes it easier to believe that the nation really can achieve absolute, irreversible victories. Sure, the United States has had failures, including some really big ones such as the Vietnam War. But even that costly failure, given the passage of time and of generations and the attitudinal balm of a splendid victory such as Operation Desert Storm—the reversal in 1991 of the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait—has not prevented restoration of hubristic optimism about what the United States can use its power to accomplish. One of the reactions to Desert Storm—specifically, the neoconservative reaction—featured once again the idea that accomplishment of a limited military aim is not enough and that the United States should go for the gold.

   7-17-11
   Fareed’s Take: Deal making needed in Afghanistan
   CNN by Fareed Zakaria
   This week Ahmed Wali Karzai was gunned down by one of his bodyguards – a close family associate. Ahmed was President Hamid Karzai’s half brother and ran the crucial southern provinces of Afghanistan for Karzai.  His death has properly been described as a huge setback for Karzai and for the international coalition that is trying to support the Karzai government in Kabul.

   
   

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