dpa

Middle East News
Nov 12, 2009, 9:20 GMT

Baghdad - Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned Iraqis on Thursday to expect more terrorist violence ahead of parliamentary elections set for January.

'All eyes are now turning to the date of the next elections, and I think terrorists are planning more violence,' Zebari told reporters in Baghdad.

Iraqis are scheduled to go to the polls on January 21, after lawmakers on Sunday arrived at a compromise solution for voting in the region around the disputed northern city of Kirkuk.

'The terrorists hope that these criminal acts will prove that they can undermine security and confidence in the government and the state' ahead of the elections, Zebari said.

'Investigations have proved that the Baath Party, working with al- Qaeda, carried out the two blasts that targeted a number of Iraqi ministries' in central Baghdad on August 19 and October 25, the foreign minister said.

Those attacks together left 255 people dead, hundreds more wounded, and badly damaged the ministries of foreign affairs, justice and finance.

Following the two attacks, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accused Syria of not doing enough to stop Iraqi Baathists now in Syria from financing and planning attacks in Iraq. The accusations sparked a diplomatic row that saw each country withdraw its ambassador to the other.

On Wednesday, al-Maliki's former national security advisor, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said that Iraqi investigations had shown that mid-level Syrian security officers also had helped plan the attacks, and accused Saudi Arabia of not doing enough to counter terrorist attacks in Iraq.

He said that Iraq had submitted thousands of pages of documents in support of those claims to UN envoy Oscar Fernandez-Taranco in formally requesting a UN investigation into the bombings.

Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1512888.php/Iraq-warns-of-rise-in-attacks-ahead-of-elections#ixzz0WdnHYpVa

November 12, 2009
News Analysis

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — When President Obama delivered a rare and public call last week for President Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption in Afghanistan, there was one glaring omission from his remarks — an “or else.”

Mr. Obama’s exclusion of the obvious threat — that he will pull American troops out of Afghanistan if Mr. Karzai does not comply — reflects a stark conundrum: How much leverage does the United States really have over the Afghan leader?

“You know that scene in the movie ‘Blazing Saddles,’ when Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and threatens to shoot himself?” asked Ronald E. Neumann, a former ambassador to Afghanistan.

“The argument that we could pull out of Afghanistan if Karzai doesn’t do what we say is stupid. We couldn’t get the Pakistanis to fight if we leave Afghanistan; we couldn’t accomplish what we’ve set out to do. And Karzai knows that.”

As Mr. Obama nears the end of his review of American strategy in Afghanistan, the issue of how he will prod, cajole or bully Mr. Karzai into taking action on matters he has avoided for the past five years has been catapulted to the center of the discussion.

Administration officials and America’s European allies say that rampant corruption and the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan have fueled the resurgence of the Taliban, and that unless Mr. Karzai moves forcefully to tackle those issues, no amount of additional American troops will be able to turn the country around.

Yet many of Mr. Obama’s advisers said they had seen no evidence that Mr. Karzai would follow through on promises to crack down on corruption or the drug trade. Mr. Obama, who met with his advisers again on Wednesday, is said to be particularly skeptical of Mr. Karzai’s resolve.

Mr. Obama himself laid down the stakes last week when he said he wanted “a sense on the part of President Karzai that, after some difficult years in which there has been some drift, that in fact he’s going to move boldly and forcefully forward and take advantage of the international community’s interest in his country to initiate reforms internally. That has to be one of our highest priorities.”

Or else what? White House officials acknowledged this week that they were not planning on using the ultimate cudgel: pulling all American troops. Such a step would certainly get Mr. Karzai’s attention — it might lead to his overthrow because his political survival is dependent on the presence of American troops.

But withdrawing all troops would not serve American interests, officials said; aside from the chaos it could cause in Afghanistan, a pullout could tip the balance in even more volatile Pakistan, where the government is battling Taliban militants.

“What if Karzai doesn’t do what we ask and calls our bluff?” asked Richard Fontaine, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “What, do we go home now? If we set up this framework that demands X, Y and Z must be met within whatever time frame, that would only feed the fear and increase the hedging in Pakistan in a way that makes the situation even worse.”

In an interview on Wednesday, senior White House officials said that they had other tools in mind, and that the new Afghan strategy would include goals that Mr. Karzai would be pushed to meet.

more

Pressure grows on Brown after claim that US was close to troop decision is rejected

By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor
Thursday, 12 November 2009

The challenge to Gordon Brown's authority from within his own party grew last night as four former ministers joined calls for a Commons vote on the war in Afghanistan. They are pressing for an early parliamentary debate on Britain's military role and objectives in the country, and a timetable for pulling out of the region.

The move is being led by Frank Field, the former social security minister, and backed by a number of Labour members including Kim Howells, the former Foreign Office minister, Peter Kilfoyle, the former armed forces minister, and Kate Hoey, the former sports minister.

Mr Howells, who had ministerial responsibility until 2008, last week called for the phased withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.

Mr Brown told MPs yesterday that he expected an announcement from President Barack Obama in the next few days about the number of extra US troops being deployed to Afghanistan. But his forecast was played down by a White House spokesman, who said the decision on the the request for 40,000 more troops from General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan, was still "weeks and not days" away.

more

Note that the Times does not give this the favored top left position (at least online), that goes to the non-story on limited ability to push Karzai.

BBC - The US ambassador in Kabul has written to the White House to oppose sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

In a leaked cable, Karl Eikenberry said President Karzai's government should first prove it would tackle corruption.

The message arrived amid intense debate over strategy, with President Obama yet to make a decision on troop numbers.

The dramatic intervention puts the ambassador - a former military commander in Afghanistan - at odds with generals seeking reinforcements.
_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30493567/the_generals_revolt

Rollingstone.com

The Generals' Revolt
As Obama rethinks America's failed strategy in Afghanistan, he faces two insurgencies: the Taliban and the Pentagon

ROBERT DREYFUSS

Posted Oct 28, 2009 1:51 PM

In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war — go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire — or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals.

Obama knew that if he rebuffed the military's pressure, several senior officers — including Gen. David Petraeus, the ambitious head of U.S. Central Command, who is rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid of his own in 2012 — could break ranks and join forces with hawks in the Republican Party. GOP leaders and conservative media outlets wasted no time in warning Obama that if he refused to back the troop escalation being demanded by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander overseeing the eight-year-old war, he'd be putting U.S. soldiers' lives at risk and inviting Al Qaeda to launch new assaults on the homeland. The president, it seems, is battling two insurgencies: one in Afghanistan and one cooked up by his own generals.

Get the latest political insight on our National Affairs blog

"I don't understand why the military is putting so much pressure on the White House now over Afghanistan," says a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. "Unless it has something to do with the presidential ambitions of a certain Centcom commander."

The military's campaign to force Obama's hand started in earnest in September, when the Commander's Initial Assessment of the war — a highly classified report prepared by McChrystal — was leaked to The Washington Post. According to insiders, the leak was coordinated by someone close to Petraeus, McChrystal's boss and ally. Speculation has centered on Gen. Jack Keane, a retired Army vice chief of staff and Petraeus confidant, who helped convince George W. Bush to get behind the "surge" in Iraq. In the report, McChrystal paints a dire picture of the American effort in Afghanistan, concluding that a massive increase in troop levels is the only way to prevent a humiliating failure.

On Capitol Hill, hawkish GOP congressmen seized the opening to turn up the heat on Obama by demanding that he allow McChrystal and Petraeus to come to Washington to testify at high-profile hearings to ask for more troops. "It is time to listen to our commanders on the ground, not the ever-changing political winds whispering defeat in Washington," declared Sen. Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri. Attempting to usurp Obama's authority as commander in chief, Sen. John McCain introduced an amendment to compel the two generals to come before Congress, but the measure was voted down by the Democratic majority.

Advertisement

As the pressure from the military and the right built, McChrystal went on 60 Minutes to complain that he had only talked to Obama once since his appointment in June. Then, upping the ante, the general flew to London for a speech, where he was asked if de-escalating the war, along the lines reportedly suggested by Vice President Joe Biden, might work. "The short answer is: no," said McChrystal, dismissing the idea as "shortsighted." His comment — which bluntly defied the American tradition that a military officer's job is to carry out policy, not make it — shocked political observers in Washington and reportedly angered the White House.

"Petraeus and McChrystal have put Obama in a trick bag," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "We had this happen one time before, with Douglas MacArthur" — the right-wing general who was fired after he defied President Truman over the Korean War in 1951.

It isn't clear how far McChrystal and his boss, Petraeus, are willing to go. There have been rumors around the Pentagon that McChrystal might quit if Obama doesn't give him what he wants — a move that would fuel Republican criticism of Obama. "He'll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior U.S. military officer in Kabul told reporters.

For his part, Obama moved quickly to handle the insurrection. One day after McChrystal's defiant London speech, the president unexpectedly summoned the general to a one-on-one meeting aboard an idling Air Force One in Copenhagen. No details of the discussion were released, but two days later Jim Jones, the retired Marine general who now serves as Obama's national-security adviser, publicly rebuked McChrystal, declaring that it is "better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

much more

Barack Obama 'risks Suez-like disaster' in Afghanistan, says key adviser

Leading authority on counter-insurgency fears US is heading for 'irresponsible' fudge on extra troops

* Ewen MacAskill
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 November 2009 21.56 GMT

A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise.

David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy". He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit.

Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, he compared the president to someone "pontificating" over whether to send enough firefighters into a burning building to put a fire out.

He was speaking as Obama left Washington for a nine-day trip to Asia without announcing a decision on troop numbers. The options being considered by the US have been narrowed down to four: sending 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000, the latter the figure requested by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. These would be on top of 68,000 US troops already deployed.

The deep divisions with the Obama administration were exposed yesterday by leaked diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who urged Obama to ignore McChrystal's request unless the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, cleaned up his corrupt government.

Kilcullen expressed concern that Obama might deny McChrystal the 40,000 extra troops and split the difference between the four options, the kind of fudge common in domestic politics.

"Time is running out for us to make a decision. We can either put in enough troops to control the environment or we can credibly communicate our intention to leave. Either could work. Splitting the difference is not the way to go," Kilcullen said.

"It feels to me that all these options are dangerously close to the middle ground and we have to consider whether the middle ground is a good place to be. The middle ground is a good place on domestic issues, but not on strategy. You either commit to D-Day and invade the continent or you get Suez. Half-measures end up with Suez. Do it or not do it."

Kilcullen, though employed by the state department and various Nato governments, stressed he was speaking in a private capacity. A former Australian army officer, he is based in an office outside Washington and has served in various capacities in the US government, including as an adviser to General David Petraeus, the overall US commander. He is coy about the extent of his involvement but, apart from paid consultancies, his views are regularly sought by senior figures at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the administration.

He said it would be irresponsible to opt for a halfway house in which extra troops were sent in but not enough to secure Afghanistan, which seemed to be the way the administration was headed. He noted that Obama, in a speech to troops in Jacksonville, Florida, a fortnight ago, had said he would never lightly put them in harm's way.

"That's not the situation we are in. As an analogy, you have a building on fire, and it's got a bunch of firemen inside. There are not enough firemen to put it out. You have to send in more or you have to leave. It is not appropriate to stand outside pontificating about not taking lightly the responsibility of sending firemen into harm's way. Either put in enough firemen to put the fire out or get out of the house. That is my analogy of where we are. Either of those approaches could potentially work."

He added: "If you have 40,000 troops it would be do-able. Anything less than 25,000 is throwing good money after bad."

Kilcullen supports the idea, pushed by British commanders, of protecting places where the population live rather than attempting to secure all territory.

There is media speculation in Washington that Obama may divert from his Asian trip to Kabul to confront Karzai. Kilcullen argues there is a need for Obama to exert leverage over the Afghan president by issuing a credible threat to pull out all US troops unless he cleans up corruption.

The White House line at present is that leaving is not an option. But Kilcullen said there was a vicious cycle that began with government corruption, creating the space for the Taliban to expand. There were two ways of getting leverage: one, of having enough troops in the country, and the other threatening to leave, as the US had done in Iraq.

"Our way out is to go to Karzai and say 'We are done here'. We will be leaving in two to five years. If you do not want to be left hanging from a lamppost, like Najibullah [the former Afghan president hanged in Kabul in 1996 when the Taliban took control], this is what you need to do. I think that would work," Kilcullen said.

He was critical of the delay in reaching a decision. "I do think, though, the policy process of this administration this year has been, shall we say, messy and this, the latest incident [the leaked diplomatic cables], underlines how messy it has been, and I think that is problematic.

"It sends a message of indecision and uncertainty which has an effect on allies, and has a huge effect on the British political debate and has huge impact on the Afghans."

Surge in US troops will fuel Taliban insugency, former Afghan warlord says

Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, the controversial former Afghan warlord, has warned Washington that sending more US troops to Afghanistan will simply hamper its war against the Taliban insurgency.

By Dean Nelson and Ben Farmer in Kabul
Published: 7:00AM GMT 13 Nov 2009

Only an Afghan-led solution can bring victory, he believes.
His comments in an interview with The Daily Telegraph were made as the American ambassador to Kabul, Gen Karl Eikenberry, warned President Obama not to send thousands more US soldiers to shore up President Hamid Karzai’s regime.

Gen Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, was a central military leader in the Northern Alliance which drove the Taliban from Kabul in 2001 with support from US special forces.
He believes success then was based on Afghan-led troops fighting for the future of their own families. Today, he said, the number of senior Afghan military casualties was negligible because US and Nato commanders were calling the shots.

“The Afghan military failure is a question of commitment and morale: the more foreign money and troops the less Afghans see this war as theirs,” he said. “In the past six years, I have not heard of one Afghan officer of captain or major rank killed in battle.

“During this same period hundreds of Americans and other Nato soldiers have been killed. This is a major embarrassment for the Afghan government and its people.

He said the current Afghan military leadership had become far too dependent on following western forces, put ting US and Nato personnel at greater risk.

Gen Dostum remains influential in Afghanistan – his support helped President Karzai’s re-election earlier this month – despite allegations of human rights abuses.

He was blamed for the suffocation of an estimated 300 Taliban prisoners while they were being transported from a jail after a failed breakout.

More than 60 of Gen Dostum’s men died controlling the breakout, including senior officers, along with the American CIA agent Mike Spann. Senior UN figures believe his decision to accept the surrender of 6,000 militants avoided many more deaths.

Since then he has disarmed and demobilised his 50,000-strong militia and formed a democratic party. He won almost a million votes in the 2005 presidential election. He was sacked as chief of staff to the Afghan Armed Forces’ commander in chief last year after his bodyguards kidnapped a rival ethnic leader, a convicted drugs trafficker, but has been reinstated.

He believes Western leaders are wrong to think Taliban fighters can be lured from the leadership of Mullah Omar, and persuaded to give up protecting Osama bin Laden.

Western pressure to centralise power in Kabul excluded local people from key appointments and billions of dollars in aid. It enriched the political elite but failed to alleviate poverty while undermining local initiative, he said.

He said the West had also misunderstood the role of commanders in Afghanistan’s war-ravaged society. “Are all commanders bad, even those who fought the Taliban and al-Qaeda and have disarmed? They are demanding unicorns in Kabul.”

Unlike many British and US strategists, who favour a political “reconciliation” with “non-ideological” Taliban, Gen Dostum believes a military victory is possible.

“We defeated extremism [in 2001] by a pragmatic military approach, which was linked to trusting people, their communities and involving them in the fight for their future. If this can be done again, we will win,” he said.

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 November 2009 20.30 GMT Article history

There was widespread condemnation from around the world today of an Iraqi court ruling fining the Guardian for reporting criticism of the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

A broad range of leading journalists, Iraq experts, civic society activists and former officials involved in Iraq's postwar reconstruction said the ruling and fine – for an article quoting intelligence officials as saying Maliki was becoming increasingly authoritarian – reflected a marked decline in press freedom in Iraq.

The article was written by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an award-winning Iraqi staff correspondent for the Guardian.

Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, said: "This ruling has to send a shiver up the spine of anyone who hopes for a genuinely democratic Iraq. What the court calls libel is, in most countries, called journalism.

"Indeed, if a respected journalist like Ghaith Abdul-Ahad can be punished for reporting on concerns about a trend toward authoritarian government, the verdict would seem to lend credence to those very concerns."

Maliki's Dawa party issued a statement today denying that the prime minister had been behind the court ruling over the April article, claiming that the case had been brought by the Iraqi national intelligence service (INIS) without prompting from the political leadership. The statement also insisted that Iraq's judiciary remained independent. But many commentators ridiculed the idea that INIS would act without the prime minister's approval and pointed out that the court awarded damages in the case to Maliki.

Another American journalist who has written extensively about Iraq, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, said: "The notion that the newly organised government of Iraq would not understand the basic tenets of press freedom makes a mockery of the sacrifice of the soldiers and the journalists who have lost their lives or been injured doing their jobs there."

Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador and adviser to the Iraqi Kurd leadership, described Abdul-Ahad's article as "an important story about Iraqi prime minister Maliki's efforts to create an intelligence service loyal to him personally and to concentrate power in his own hands at the expense of his partners in parliament and government.

"The Iraqi government's response in effect affirms the main points of the story as well as raising troubling issues about freedom of the press in Iraq six years after the US and Britain invaded Iraq with the goal of building democracy in that country."

Andy Bearpark, a British expert on post-war reconstruction who was director of operations and infrastructure in the US-led coalition provisional authority in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, agreed that the squeeze on media freedom in Iraq called into question the democracy that the war had ostensibly been fought to build.

"Freedom from tyranny, and the freedom of speech which underpins it, was the reason so many people, Iraqi and others, tried so hard and suffered so much after Saddam was removed in 2003. It is a tragedy to see their efforts undermined in this way," said Bearpark, who is now head of the British Association of Private Security Companies.

The Baghdad court delivered its judgment on Tuesday, ignoring expert testimony from three senior members of the Iraqi journalists' union that Abdul-Ahad's article was not defamatory. The Guardian has said it will appeal against the verdict.

more

Open Left

Empire Burlesque
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 12 November 2009 12:37

The New York Times is shocked -- shocked! -- to find personal enrichment of American elites at the heart of the rape and gutting of Iraq. Who could possibly have ever foreseen such a scenario as the Times revealed on Thursday, describing how "influential American adviser" Peter Galbraith helped "ram through" highly controversial provisions in the constitution that the occupying force and its collaborators imposed – provisions that could put more than $100 million in Galbraith's pocket.

Of course, Galbraith's war-profiteering machinations are hardly unique; the roll call of "advisers" and officials and other insiders feasting on Iraqi corpseflesh is longer than the Mississippi, and considerably more muddy. Just this week, the Financial Times noted that another gaggle of occupation geese, "including Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Baghdad, and Jay Garner," the first appointed satrap of the conquered land, are now cashing in on their blood-soaked connections in Iraq.

Given the fact of the rampant corruption among the murder-mongering elite, one might darkly suspect that this sudden spotlight on Galbraith could be related to the embarrassment he recently caused to the Obama administration, which ordered the UN to fire him from his special envoy post after he insisted on a full investigation of the massive fraud in the Afghan elections. (Although one can't but wonder now if Galbraith took this principled stand only after failing to cut some juicy sweetheart deal with Hamid Karzai.)

MORE

The Guardian, By Martin Chulov, November 13

Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.

The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

Hal Bernton | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: November 13, 2009 06:01:08 PM

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — The insurgents' tactics are familiar. Night letters warn village elders to cooperate or face death. Religious "taxes" must be paid, and fiery sermons in mosques attack the Karzai government and international forces.

The locale is startling, however: Afghanistan's northern Balkh province, which in the years after the fall of the Taliban emerged as one of the most stable — and in its urban hub of Mazar-i-Sharif — most prosperous places in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, often working with criminal gangs, have regained a foothold in four of the province's 14 districts, and in recent months they've stepped up their campaign using roadside bomb attacks and other tactics. Earlier this month, three Afghan police officers in one of the restive districts were killed in a drive-by shooting.

The Taliban's growing presence in northern Afghanistan, near the U.S. and NATO supply routes from the north, poses new challenges for the international forces, which until now have had a small contingent of 520 Swedish and Finnish troops to keep watch over Balkh and three other provinces.

In the first 10 months of this year, there have been 82 significant combat incidents in Balkh, more than triple the number in 2008, and the insurgency may be even more potent next year.

"In areas where they are hiding right now, we won't have any control during the winter," said Col. Olof Granander, a commander of Swedish forces in Balkh. "And there is a risk they will try to build up their capacity, and they will be tougher to fight during the upcoming spring and summer."

Northern Afghanistan is dominated by Tajiks, Uzbeks and other ethnic groups that were a mainstay of the mujahedeen forces that fought the communists, and then fended off the Taliban until 1998, when the Islamic extremists captured and held Mazar until the U.S. intervention in 2001.

Decades ago, however, pockets of Pashtuns moved into the region, encouraged by the central government, and many of these Pashtun areas have become focal points for the Taliban's northern insurgency.

Insurgent activity is still far below the levels in the more violent provinces in eastern and southern Afghanistan that are expected to be the focal point of any new U.S. troop deployments, but some analysts say the north shouldn't be overlooked.

If the international community reinforces the Afghan police and military there, "the insurgents could be stopped relatively easily. This will not be the case in one or two years if the insurgency is allowed to grow," wrote Gilles Dorronsoro in a report for The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Some of the biggest Taliban gains have been in northern Kunduz province, where insurgents set up shadow governments in at least one district. Earlier this month, some 750 Afghan and international forces launched an operation that reportedly killed more than 100 insurgents, including eight commanders, according to NATO officials.

Across the country, in northwestern Faryab province, the Taliban have moved heavily into one district that's predominately Pashtun, according to Army Capt. Samuel Weeks, who commands a company of U.S. soldiers based in the province's capital city. Just before the Aug. 20 election, mortar attacks in the Faryab district killed seven Afghan police officers.

Weeks said that earlier this year he got a phone call from the Taliban after they captured a U.S. surveillance drone. They wanted to sell it back to the Army, an offer he quickly rejected because the drone had no intelligence value and he wasn't about to help fund the insurgency.

Weeks said the Taliban tend to stay in the western Faryab district, where they have the most support, and their numbers appear to be growing.

"They get pushed out of other areas, and come here," said Weeks, 34, of Thomaston, Ga.

In Balkh, the Taliban work with smugglers who in the absence of government control have developed weapons smuggling routes, according to Western officials.

Many of the Taliban appear to be local residents who were refugees in Pakistan and have returned to rural districts with substantial Pashtun populations, according to Granander. These rural districts haven't shared in much of the economic growth that's revived the Balkh's urban center of Mazar-i-Sharif, a hub of trade and agriculture.

In an effort to spruce up the city, Gov. Mohammad Atta Noor even had European-style traffic circles built that feature statues and neon lights.

Atta is a former mujahedeen fighter against the Russians — and later the Taliban — whom Karzai appointed in 2004. Since then, Atta has emerged as an outspoken critic of Karzai's government. He says the Taliban gains have occurred as the central government failed to follow through with development efforts in the past several years.

"The central government has neglected northern Afghanistan, and that is why there is insecurity," Atta told McClatchy in an interview. "The people here felt neglected, and that's why the enemy of Afghanistan, they came here and started problems."

NATO officials said that Atta has been a strong partner in the fight against the Taliban but he has limited control over the police and army. He faces an uncertain political future, and the tension between him and Karzai has added another layer of volatility to Balkh province, with fears that the dispute eventually could trigger violence.

In the summer presidential campaign, Atta openly backed Karzai's challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, an ally against the Taliban from 1996 to 2001. All over Mazar-i-Sharif, posters left over from the election feature photos of Atta and Abdullah.

An oil portrait of Karzai still hangs on the wall in Atta's cavernous, ornate office, but Atta said that the election that recently made Karzai president for another five years included hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes for the incumbent.

"This is not a legitimate decision to announce Karzai as the legitimate president of Afghanistan," Atta said.

Asked if he personally recognizes Karzai as president, Atta sighed and paused. He said his future support for Karzai depends what changes Karzai makes in his government, such as removing the minister of interior, whom Atta thinks has been a failure.

"Right now, Afghanistan is in a crisis of legitimacy," Atta said. "We will see what changes are made in the government, and based on that we will make our decision."

There have been reports that some Northern Alliance veterans are rearming themselves in case they have to fight Karzai, but the Swedish military couldn't confirm them, said Granander. Atta said that he wouldn't support violence, but that he doesn't control everything that happens in the north.

Granander said that in some Balkh communities, villagers are banding together to resist the Taliban efforts to impose taxes, but the Taliban have been threatening to kill those who refuse to comply with their edicts or who cooperate with Afghan and NATO security forces. Those threats have prompted many villagers to cooperate reluctantly with the Taliban.

"It's support by terror," Granander said.

(Bernton reports for The Seattle Times.)

ABC.net.au - An investigation has been launched into allegations that British soldiers tortured Iraqi civilians, Britain's Ministry of Defence said.

The announcement of the probe came after the Independent newspaper said 33 cases of alleged abuse had been reported, including claims of rape, the use of torture techniques and physical assault.

The newspaper said the civilians claimed British soldiers in Iraq copied sexual and physical abuse from photographs taken at the notorious US-run Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, which emerged in 2004.

A legal letter was served on the ministry last week by a lawyer representing the Iraqis, the report said.

Britain's armed forces minister Bill Rammell said "formal investigations" must be carried out "without judgments being made prematurely".

He added: "Over 120,000 British troops have served in Iraq and the vast, vast majority have conducted themselves to the highest standards of behaviour, displaying integrity and selfless commitment.

"While there have been instances when individuals have behaved badly, only a tiny number of individuals have been shown to have fallen short of our high standards.

"Allegations of this nature are taken very seriously, however allegations must not be taken as fact and formal investigations must be allowed to take their course without judgments being made prematurely."

In the letter to the ministry, reported in the newspaper, lawyer Phil Shiner said: "Given the history of the UK's involvement in the development of these techniques alongside the US, it is deeply concerning that there appears to be strong similarities between instances of the use of sexual humiliation."

One claimant alleges he was raped by two British soldiers, while others say they were striped naked, abused and photographed between 2003 and 2007, the Independent reported.

Female British soldiers are alleged to have taken part in the alleged incidents.

Camp Bucca near Basra in southern Iraq, where British and US troops worked alongside each other, was named by the newspaper as one possible scene of the alleged abuse.

In September 2003, Iraqi hotel receptionist Baha Mousa died after suffering 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose, while in British military custody in Basra, southern Iraq. A public inquiry into the case is taking place in London.

Photographs taken at Abu Ghraib showed naked and hooded prisoners being beaten until they bled by their US guards and made to commit humiliating acts such as simulated homosexual intercourse.

In 2006, then US president George W Bush admitted the scandal was the biggest blunder Washington had made in its entire Iraq campaign, and the facility was closed and handed over to Iraqi control.

- AFP

New York Times, By (Anonymous by request), November 13

DIYALA, Iraq – Nobody could describe the state of destruction in the village of death. Destruction was all around, impressions of the tragedy are found wherever you look around. Dozens of innocent victims had stepped over this ground toward their final fate, to be buried in mass graves.

In Diyala province, Albo Tu’mma village east of Baquba is one of those villages that fell to Al Qaeda in 2006. It proved to be one of Al Qaeda’s most important bastions and was where the movement established its great prison: East Baquba.

Dozens of people who were abducted from the main road which links Baquba and Mansuriya were held in that jail, after Al Qaeda broadened its area of control to dominate another 15 villages, 11 of which were totally destroyed.

War in Afghanistan: Not in our name

71% of Britons back IoS call for withdrawal of forces within a year

By Jane Merrick and Brian Brady in London and Kim Sengupta in Kabul

Sunday, 15 November 2009

Seven out of 10 Britons back The Independent on Sunday's call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as a landmark report by Oxfam this week exposes the real human cost of the war.

The powerful dossier by the aid agency reveals how women and children in Afghanistan are bearing the brunt of the ongoing conflict, undermining the international community's claims that they are the very people being helped by the West's activities.

Its contents will add to mounting concerns among the public, and in some quarters of the military and the House of Commons, that the US and the UK are fighting an ill-conceived and ill-judged war that has left as many as 32,000 Afghans dead and 235,000 displaced.

In a ComRes poll for the IoS this weekend, an overwhelming proportion – 71 per cent – supported this newspaper's call for a phased withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan within a year or so, while just 22 per cent disagreed.

Nearly half – 47 per cent – think that the threat of terrorism on UK soil is increased by British forces remaining in Afghanistan, while 44 per cent disagree. The position is at odds with the argument put by government ministers that the Afghan campaign was vital to preventing terrorism around the world – and in the UK.

Douglas Alexander, the Secretary of State for International Development, last night told the IoS that UK forces must remain in Afghanistan to prevent it becoming a "safe haven" for al-Qa'ida, and exporting terror to places including Britain.

Oxfam's report, published on Wednesday, comes at a critical time in Kabul, London and Washington, as politicians and generals decide whether more troops should be sent to fight the Taliban.

President Barack Obama said on Friday a decision would be made "soon" on whether to agree to the request of US commander General Stanley McChrystal for 40,000 more soldiers.

The President has been urged by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, to resist a surge, because President Hamid Karzai's government lacks legitimacy.

Mr Brown will set out Britain's long-term strategy in Afghanistan in a speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London tomorrow. Britain has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan and Mr Brown has already agreed to send a further 500.

But there were signs this weekend that cabinet unity is starting to fracture over the conflict, with Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Wales, telling The Times that the Government needed to "get a grip" on the mission strategy. Andy Burnham and John Denham were also said to be expressing doubts.

The IoS poll revealed that 46 per cent believed that Mr Brown has handled the issue of Afghanistan better than David Cameron would do as PM, while 39 per cent backed the Tory leader.

Oxfam does not advocate a withdrawal from Afghanistan, but its report, The Cost of War in Afghanistan, amounts to a forceful indictment of the mission. It is expected to reflect a catalogue of evidence that ordinary Afghans are paying a heavy price after eight years of war.

Researchers for Oxfam spoke to more than 700 Afghans in 14 provinces, who provided powerful testimonies.

more

November 15, 2009
Broaching Birth Control With Afghan Mullahs

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — The mullahs stared silently at the screen. They shifted in their chairs and fiddled with pencils. Koranic verses flashed above them, but the topic was something that made everybody a little uncomfortable.

“A baby should be breast-fed for at least 21 months,” said the instructor. “Milk is safe inside the breast. Dust and germs can’t get inside.”

It was a seminar on birth control, a likely subject for a nation whose fertility rate of 6 children per woman is the highest in Asia. But the audience was unusual: 10 Islamic religious leaders from this city and its suburbs, wearing turbans and sipping tea.

The message was simple. Babies are good, but not too many; wait two years before having another to give your wife’s body a chance to recover. Nothing in Islam expressly forbids birth control. But it does emphasize procreation, and mullahs, like leaders of other faiths, consider children to be blessings from God, and are usually the most determined opponents of having fewer of them.

It is an attitude that Afghanistan can no longer afford, in the view of the employees of the nonprofit group that runs the seminars, Marie Stopes International. The high birthrate places a heavy weight on a society where average per capita earnings are about $700 a year. It is also a risk to mothers. Afghanistan is second only to Sierra Leone in maternal mortality rates, which run as high as 8 percent in some areas.

“If we work hard on this issue, we can rescue our country from misery,” said Rahmatuddin Bashardost, a doctor who helps lead the mullahs’ classes.

The mullahs were reluctant participants. Truth be told, they were paid to show up. But surprisingly, they seemed to emerge from the session invigorated.

“This was a useful and friendly discussion,” said Mullah Amruddin, a tall man in a dramatic turban. “If you have too many children and you can’t control them, that’s bad for Islam.”

Maybe they were so receptive because a mullah led the class, using their own language — scripture from the Koran. Or maybe it was because some attitudes are starting to change.

Syed Wasem Massoom, 29, a mullah and one of the trainers, said urban Afghans were looking for ways to have fewer children. Afghanistan was changing, he said, especially its cities, and mullahs had better be thinking about these issues.

“People kept asking us how to have less children,” he said.

Afghan women who work for Marie Stopes, distributing birth control door to door in the country’s capital, have also noticed an interest. An overwhelming majority of people are still skeptical of their motives. (Foreign spies! Christian missionaries who want to reduce the Muslim population!) But a growing number are open to the idea.

“Sometimes they are kind of surprised that this kind of thing exists,” said one of the workers, a woman named Aziza.

In 2009 alone, the sale of birth control pills nearly doubled to 11,000 in September from 6,000 packages in January, according to Marie Stopes figures.

One woman was so happy to have birth control pills that she hugged and kissed Aziza, ripped open a package and swallowed a pill with a gulp of water.

“She said she didn’t want to wait until evening,” Aziza said, laughing at the memory. The total number of the woman’s children: 17. Three dead, 14 living.

more

New U.S. Afghan prison unveiled, rights groups wary

15 Nov 2009 14:11:02 GMT
By Jonathon Burch

BAGRAM, Afghanistan, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. military unveiled a new $60 million Afghan prison on Sunday it said would provide detainees better living conditions and promote transparency, but rights groups said the changes were not enough.

International media were allowed to visit the facility at Bagram Air Base, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, that will replace an existing prison which has drawn widespread criticism.

The new prison, which was completed in September and is still empty, will begin housing prisoners from the old facility in the next two weeks, with transfer of the roughly 700 detainees to be completed by the end of the year.

"The new facility ... provides improved detainee living conditions ... as well as vocational, technical, and other programmes to assist with peaceful reintegration of released detainees," said U.S. Brigadier General Mark Martins.

"This facility, and these reintegration programmes ... will promote transparency and legitimacy," Martins, interim commander for U.S. detainee operations in Afghanistan, told reporters at the base north of Kabul.

The existing Bagram prison has become a symbol of detainee abuses for Afghans after the deaths of two detainees in 2002. In June, the BBC reported allegations of abuse and neglect at the facility after interviewing 27 former inmates.

Asked how he would describe conditions there, Martins said it had always met international and domestic standards. No media has ever been allowed to visit the notorious detention facility.

SANCTUARIES FOR INSURGENTS

General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has said insurgents use detention facilities as sanctuaries and has criticised U.S. facilities like Bagram, where prisoners have fewer rights than those held at Guantanamo Bay.

In September, the Pentagon announced that prisoners at Bagram prison would be able to have their detention reviewed roughly every six months and would be assigned personal representatives drawn from U.S. military ranks.

Those detainees' representatives would not be lawyers

more

By Joe Byrne
Saturday, November 14th, 2009 -- 8:54 pm
Share on Facebook Stumble This!

afghanistan poll New estimate for Afghan war: $1 million per soldierSenior administration officials reported to the New York Times today that budget projections for the war in Afghanistan will cost U.S. taxpayers at least $1 million per soldier, per year.

The plan to add 40,000 American troops and greatly expand Afghan security forces, supported by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, is estimated to cost between $40 billion to $54 billion annually. “Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House...appears almost constant,” according to the NYT.

The new estimate for the cost of war in Afghanistan will cancel out the $26 billion savings projected for a 2010 troop withdrawal in Iraq. Under this scenario, the overall military budget could rise as high as $734 billion. The highest annual military budget during the Bush era was $667 billion.

A senior administration official speaking anonymously with the NYT said that concerns over politically volatile spending influenced the President during a White House meeting on Wednesday. Obama was insistent that each military plan incorporates the quickest possible exit strategy. “He knows we cannot sustain this indefinitely,” the official said.

more

Kurdish guns threaten to bring a new humanitarian catastrophe to Iraqi minorities

Asia News.it, by Layla Yousif Rahema, November 11

Erbil – A new human rights catastrophe is in the making in northern Iraq as local ethnic and religious minorities risk being swept away after thousands of years of presence as a result of the Kurdish-Arab fight for control of the Nineveh Plains, this according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its latest report titled ‘On Vulnerable Ground’, the human rights organisation says that Christians, Yazidis, Shabak and Turkmen have been caught up in the fight between Arabs and Kurds over the control of the territory and resources of Nineveh Province, whose capital is Mosul.

The study is particularly critical of the policies and strategies of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which is trying to extend its control over disputed areas, from Sinjar (north-western Iraq) to Mandali (Diyala Province), including Kirkuk.

HRW denounced the ongoing efforts by the Kurdish government in Erbil to kurdisise minorities in its territory to ensure their electoral and political support.

At the same time, Kurdish forces have been silencing dissenting voices, often relying on “intimidation, threats, arbitrary arrests, and detentions to coerce” against those who challenge KRG control. As the largest minority (400,000), Christians are the first victims of such policies.

Asia Times Nov 18
By Sanobar Shermatova

MOSCOW - In the eight years the United States-led coalition has been in action in Afghanistan, the northern provinces have remained largely calm - until recently, that is.

Taliban attacks have generally focused on southern Afghanistan, and the overland routes by which coalition forces brought in fuel and ammunition from Pakistan. There was never a hint of a Taliban threat to coalition air bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, or to the airfield in Tajikistan used by the French.

The decision by Central Asian states to allow their territories to be used to bring in military freight into Afghanistan via the northern route changes things dramatically. The new supply line carries

with it the risk that the Central Asian region could be dragged into the Afghan conflict.

This danger was highlighted in stark terms in September, when the Taliban stepped up their activities in Kunduz province, a region close to Tajikistan which is controlled by German troops in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force and which until this year was quiet.

When the Taliban seized two fuel tankers in Kunduz in early September, NATO responded with an air strike that resulted in a number of civilian deaths, causing an international crisis. Attacks on German military vehicles have also been reported in the region.
Afghan officials say Taliban activity in Kunduz has also involved non-Afghan militants of Central Asian origin. One senior commander, General Mustafa Patang, told journalists on September 12 that "hundreds" of militants had come to northern Afghanistan from the tribal areas of Pakistan.

On October 12, President Hamid Karzai confirmed that the Taliban were moving men to the north - adding that they were using military helicopters to do so.

more

NATO chief confident of big troop increase
Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:57am EST

By Adrian Croft

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Tuesday he was confident the alliance would substantially increase its forces battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama is weighing several options for boosting U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan as a debate rages in his administration over whether to persist with a counter-insurgency strategy or whether to narrow it to a counter-terrorism drive against al Qaeda.

"In a few weeks, I expect we will decide, in NATO, on the approach, and troop levels needed, to take our mission forward," Rasmussen told a meeting of the NATO parliamentary assembly in Edinburgh.

"I'm confident it will be a counter-insurgency approach, with substantially more forces, and we will place the Afghan population at the core of ISAF's collective effort -- by focusing on their safety, and by supporting reconstruction and development," he said.

Mounting casualties this year in some of the fiercest fighting since the Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001 has undermined public support for the war in some NATO countries, including Britain.

"NEW MOMENTUM"

Rasmussen said he understood people's concerns. "But people should be reassured that soon there will be new momentum," he said.

more

Former Army corporal breaks ranks in evidence to Baha Mousa inquiry

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Tuesday, 17 November 2009

A former soldier who had kept his silence for six years broke ranks yesterday to accuse his superior officer and former comrades of the brutal beating and torture of Iraqi prisoners which ended in the killing of an Iraqi civilian.

Donald Payne, 35, a former corporal in the British Army, said that the soldiers had acted out of revenge over the murder of three Royal Military Policemen and the killing of an Army captain who had been blown up while delivering humanitarian aid to southern Iraq.

In a dramatic change to his evidence, Payne, who has already been convicted of the inhumane treatment of Iraqis, told a public inquiry he and other soldiers had routinely kicked and punched nine Iraqi detainees captured in September 2003. One of them, Baha Mousa, died from asphyxiation and 93 separate injuries. The new allegations raise concerns about the widespread abuse of dozens of Iraqi detainees and come days after the Ministry of Defence said it was investigating 33 other separate cases of torture carried out by British soldiers in Iraq and revealed in The Independent on Saturday.

more

Source: Reuters
* Pakistan's Zardari among 300 dignitaries to attend
* Karzai's reputation in tatters, Wests looks for signs
* Security clampdown across Kabul on eve of ceremony

By Peter Graff

KABUL, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Foreign dignitaries were to begin descending on Kabul on Wednesday, the eve of the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai, who is struggling to rehabilitate his tattered reputation in the West after a fraud-marred election.

Afghanistan's foreign ministry says 300 international dignitaries will attend Thursday's oath-taking ceremony at the sprawling presidential palace in Kabul, including 30 presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner have confirmed they will attend Karzai's swearing-in.

Other countries, including the United States, have not announced in advance who will attend for security reasons.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is in the final stages of deciding whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops, a decision that could come soon after the inauguration brings the tumultuous three-month election process to a close.

The Taliban insurgency has never been deadlier during Karzai's 8-year rule, the Western force protecting him has never been larger, and his own reputation has never been weaker, wrecked by election fraud, corruption and weak government.

Security for the ceremony in Kabul will be extreme, with reporters barred from attending the inauguration itself.

The centrepiece of the ceremony will be Karzai's inauguration speech, with Western officials hoping that the veteran leader can lay out a specific programme to combat corruption, improve performance and limit the influence of former warlords.

"We would like some sort of roadmap. We want some clear direction given here," a European diplomat said.

more

U.S. wants Karzai to use speech for concrete steps

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and its allies want Afghan President Hamid Karzai to use Thursday's inauguration speech to announce concrete steps to fight corruption and govern better, U.S. and Western officials said.

Karzai will be sworn in for a second term at a ceremony attended by international dignitaries looking for signs of Karzai's commitment. His disputed election victory last August was tarnished by widespread vote rigging.

"The international community will be paying very close attention to that speech but what is more important is what Karzai does afterward," said a senior U.S. official.

A European diplomat said several nations had given Karzai a "shopping list" of what he needed to do including reaching out to his political enemies and combating corruption. They hoped he would refer to those items in his speech.

more

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 -- 8:56 pm
Share on Facebook Stumble This!

afghan%20patrol Poll: Majority in US now see Afghan war as not worth fightingSupport for the US mission in Afghanistan has slipped to a new low, with 44 percent of Americans now saying the war there has been worth the cost, according to a recently released poll.

Amid mounting divisiveness over what was once one of President Barack Obama's top foreign policy issues, the poll by The Washington Post and ABC News also showed ratings for how he has handled the mission there eroding, to 45 percent approving of how he is dealing with Afghanistan and 47 disapproving, compared to 63 percent approval last year.

The numbers come as Obama grapples with whether to send more US troops to Afghanistan to boost the fight against a growing Taliban-led insurgency, just a week after a stopover at a US military base in Alaska at the start of his Asia trip when he told US troops he will get "public support back home" for the mission.

Only 44 percent now say the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting -- the fewest since early 2007 -- and 52 percent say it has not, up 13 points from its low of last December, the news outlets' polling divisions said.

And while 55 percent expressed confidence that Obama will forge a successful Afghan strategy, Americans appeared evenly split on whether the president should order large numbers of new troops into the country, with 46 percent supporting a larger US force and 45 percent a smaller one.

more

General unsure if repeated combat tours to blame for record Army suicides

By Raw Story
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 -- 8:53 pm
Share on Facebook Stumble This!

2009 breaks Army record for soldier suicides, up over a dozen from 2008

iraq7 General unsure if repeated combat tours to blame for record Army suicidesSuicides in the US Army are headed to a new record this year but it remains unclear if repeated combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq are causing more soldiers to take their lives, a top general has said.

With 140 suspected cases reported among soldiers since the start of 2009, the number of suicides was already at last year's level, General Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, told a news conference.

"We are almost certainly going to end the year higher than last year," Chiarelli said.

As of Monday, 71 suspected suicides also were reported among service members no longer on active duty, which surpassed the 2008 figure, he said.
Story continues below...

The total number of Army suicides has reached 211 as of Tuesday, according to the government's tally.

"For all of 2008, the Army said 140 active-duty soldiers killed themselves while 57 Guard and Reserve soldiers committed suicide, totaling 197, according to Army statistics," CNN noted.

more

bbc

Many Afghans surveyed felt that foreign aid was not reaching them

Poverty and unemployment are overwhelmingly seen as the main reasons behind conflict in Afghanistan, according to a survey in that country.

British aid agency Oxfam - which questioned 704 Afghans - said seven out of 10 respondents blamed these factors.

Taliban violence was seen as less important than government weakness and corruption, according to the poll.

Oxfam said the survey showed that the country needed more than military solutions.

MORE

posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 11/20/2009 @ 11:11am

President Obama is expected to make a decision regarding his Afghanistan strategy after Thanksgiving. Before doing so, he would be wise to consider an alternative which has, until now, been excluded from the systematic review of the gravest decision a president must make. That alternative is laid out clearly in a just-released letter to President Obama from the Congressional Progressive Caucus' Afghanistan Taskforce.

Through careful consultation with a wide array of experts, including those who testified at a series of forums on Afghanistan earlier this year, the Taskforce has developed a smart, alternative approach that would be more effective in providing for both US and Afghanistan security, and far less costly in treasure and lives.

In the letter, Taskforce Chair Michael Honda, along with CPC co-chairs, Representatives Raúl Grijalva and Lynn Woolsey, and CPC members, Representatives Barbara Lee and James McGovern, outline their strategy and request a meeting.

The legislators write that their "perspectives have manifested…via Congressional Progressive Caucus Member-led legislation" including: a timeline for eventual troop withdrawal, prohibiting funds for additional troop surges, reorienting the mission so that 80 percent of US resources are devoted to economic and political development and 20 percent towards security, and prioritizing diplomacy and development over the use of force.

more with links

David Miliband says UK needs more time to shore up Afghan government

* Julian Glover
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 November 2009 19.24 GMT

The Afghan government could fall within weeks if Nato pulled out troops now, David Miliband warned today as he urged British opponents of the war to give the fight to rebuild the country more time.

In an interview with the Guardian at the end of a visit to Kabul for the presidential inauguration of Hamid Karzai, the foreign secretary said: "If international forces leave, you can choose a time – five minutes, 24 hours or seven days – but the insurgent forces will overrun those forces that are prepared to put up resistance and we would be back to square one."

At the end of a day spent visiting British troops and officials at the headquarters of the international military effort, Miliband said that Afghans were "sad that they need anyone, but they are passionate that my goodness they do – because if we weren't here their country would be rolled over".

He agreed that public anxiety about the war is growing in Britain as a result of rising casualties. "Afghanistan wasn't on the front pages until the last six months for obvious reasons," he said. "Now for tragic reasons there is a lot of interest. What we have to do is explain to people that the costs of staying are real but they are less than the costs of leaving."

He called for the three main party leaders to remain united in support of the war, despite growing unease, in particular from Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader. "Nick Clegg and David Cameron ask serious questions about different aspects of the campaign. They can do that , and they should be asked," Miliband said. But he challenged opponents of the war to show that retreat would not harm both Afghanistan and Britain.

"I don't think British opinion is about to flip to a position that says withdraw now," he said. "But there is a high degree of concern about the casualties, understandably, there is a high degree of concern about the complexity of effecting a strategy in a country with history as complex as this, and there is a high degree of concern about all the partners that we have got.

"There is a natural reaction to 18, 19, 20-year-olds, your neighbours, relatives and your friends being killed. It makes you ask, why are we there, can you succeed, is it worth it?"

Concerns about Karzai's failure to combat bribery and extortion in Afghanistan led Gordon Brown to warn earlier this month that he would not put UK troops "in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption".

After meeting Karzai today Miliband said the Afghan president had asked him "to convey to the British people his gratitude for the sacrifices being made by British soldiers in defending his country. In particular he repeated to me, as he had to the prime minister, his condolences and his shock at the terrible killing of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman."

The foreign secretary said Karzai's estimation of a three- to five-year deadline for the handover of security control to Afghan forces would not mean an end to western involvement. "My argument is not stay or go, my argument is we stay for a purpose, for a period, for progress," he said. "Artificial timetables just give succour to your enemy. We are going to transition, and transition is a better word than exit.

"The argument we have to take on is the argument that it is futile, and we have to take it on directly by saying that it is making a difference towards a goal – the goal is hard, but the goal is clear."

Miliband agreed that Britain should look beyond its military efforts in the south of the country.

"It is important we don't fall into a trap of 'Helmandshire', that we are creating a colony," he said.