"Tension simmers at the top of Afghanistan war effort; Policy chiefs struggle to align visions" by Joshua Partlow, Washington Post | May 10, 2010
WASHINGTON — The US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, and the top US military commander there, General Stanley McChrystal, assumed their posts amid lofty expectations that they could recreate the hand-in-glove partnership that General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker had while leading the war effort in Iraq.
But....
Both men said in interviews that they enjoy a productive relationship and have built stronger bonds between troops and civilians across Afghanistan. Still....
Few critics suggest that those differences have harmed US interests in Afghanistan. People who have worked with both men said, however, that clear tensions exist at the top of the Obama administration’s most important military and foreign policy endeavor.
At times their differences over strategy have been public, particularly after two of Eikenberry’s cables to Washington last year were leaked to the news media. The cables warned that McChrystal’s request for new troops might be counterproductive.... McChrystal’s staff members were particularly upset that they weren’t made aware of Eikenberry’s position before he sent the cables to Washington, they said in interviews.
Eikenberry has resisted some of McChrystal’s wartime experiments. The ambassador refused to release funds to expand a military effort to turn villagers into armed guards. He opposed one Army brigade’s plan to form an anti-Taliban alliance with a Pashtun tribe and funnel it development money. He criticized the military’s proposal to buy generators and diesel fuel for the energy-starved city of Kandahar and supported a longer-term hydroelectric dam project.
Their views have diverged despite shared experience: Eikenberry served 18 months as the NATO commander in Afghanistan, the job McChrystal now holds, before retiring from the military and returning as ambassador. As McChrystal has overhauled the war strategy, some of the legacy he is undoing is Eikenberry’s. Eikenberry wanted to become NATO’s senior civilian representative, in addition to his job as ambassador, but McChrystal recommended against it, according to diplomats in Kabul. A British diplomat, Mark Sedwill, got the job.
Both men have tried to dispel notions that they disagree on strategy and don’t get along.
“The best metaphor I can give you is of an athletic team,’’ Eikenberry said....
Man, is this s*** making me sick!
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And EVERYTHING FINE NOW!
"Karzai seeks to boost image, aid in US visit" by Deb Riechmann, Associated Press | May 9, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — In Washington this week, Afghan president Hamid Karzai will work to recast his image as a mercurial leader prone to outbursts against the West into one of a credible partner worthy of the thousands of US troops and billions of dollars of aid still pouring into his nation in its ninth year of war.
After months of rocky relations with the Obama administration, the United States and Karzai are getting their partnership back on track. If he’s successful in the visit, which starts tomorrow, the Afghan president will leave Washington with renewed legitimacy and the political backing he needs for possible peace talks with the Taliban.
Do you like all this obfuscating MSM bulls***?
The trip comes at a critical juncture in the war. At the same time that more troops and aid are moving into Afghanistan, the United States has made it clear that its involvement is not open-ended. President Obama, who gathered his security team to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan last week at the White House, wants to start pulling out troops in July 2011 if conditions allow....
Related: US reviewing pace of Iraq troop pullout
You are not leaving Afghanistan, either, America.
Your government and MSM are lying to you again.
Thousands of US, NATO, and Afghan forces just finished a major offensive to oust the Taliban from central Helmand Province. They now are ramping up pressure on the Taliban’s birthplace of Kandahar Province next door....
The Afghan defense minister, General Abdul Rahim Wardak, said he will tell the Americans that the situation in Afghanistan is not as gloomy as is depicted in the news. But he said he will impress upon Washington that failure is not an option....
And talk about having your head in a pile of s***:
"White House offers optimistic outlook as Karzai visits; Afghan war, status of his government vital talk topic" by Anne Gearan, Associated Press | May 11, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sought yesterday to smooth over past differences with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who arrived here on a four-day mission to convince Americans that his country is not a lost cause.
At a White House news conference, Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, acknowledged that relations with Karzai have been shaky at times.
“But what measures true partnership is the ability, when the stakes are as high as they are for Afghanistan and the United States of America, to be able to work our way through difficulties and come back together and still find ourselves well aligned,’’ Eikenberry said.
He said that after this week’s meetings, “I think we’re going to emerge with even better alignment.’’
Signficant improvements in the United States and NATO military and civilian efforts have been made over the past year, Eikenberry said. “We’re confident that we’re much better postured to help deliver the progress needed in the months ahead,’’ he said.
Yeah, MORE PEOPLE are DYING but we are MAKING PROGRESS!
Good Christ, man!!!!!!
Appearing with Eikenberry, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, told reporters he has a good relationship with Karzai. “I think it’s important that I have an effective, candid responsible relationship,’’ McChrystal said. “And I’ve been real happy with it thus far.’’
Think they could stand to be next to each other?
Karzai and a large delegation of Cabinet ministers arrived for the Karzai government’s widest engagement with US leaders since his reelection in a flawed vote last year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was visiting Afghanistan Sunday, said Karzai will be received in Washington with “great dignity, great friendship, and great candor.’’
From the US perspective, the week’s events are intended to show respect for Karzai, who seems destined to preside over Kabul’s eventual political reconciliation with the Taliban, not to mention the gradual withdrawal of the US-led forces now holding the insurgents at bay.
Behind the genial public facade of the visit, both sides will struggle with deeply divisive issues:
The war, now in its ninth year, remains unpopular in the United States, Europe, and in much of Afghanistan itself.
But it goes ON and ON and ON!!
So much for DEMOCRAPPY!!!!!
Obama accepted the argument for more forces made by McChrystal, the counterinsurgency expert the president installed to turn the war around last summer. Now US military officials say time is running out for those troops to make a difference. Top military leaders generally give the policy about another year.
Yup, they NEED MORE TROOPS AGAIN!!
Afghanistan still has an uneasy, unequal relationship with Pakistan, its nuclear-armed neighbor.
Nothing about India and its influence, huh, MSM?
Parts of Pakistan have become havens for Taliban insurgents battling Karzai’s government, and for Al Qaeda. That could be a more critical factor in whether militants once again acquire the capability to launch a catastrophic attack on the United States or its allies.
So WHEN IS the NEXT FALSE FLAG, MSM?
Come on, DO TELL!!!!!!!!!!
Karzai will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today and President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden tomorrow.
Like I care.
There is no formal state dinner at the White House, but a dinner hosted by Biden is intended as a fence-mender. Biden was particularly incensed when Karzai remarked last month that if foreign interference in his government continued, the Taliban would become a legitimate resistance force — one that he might even join.
Yeah, Karzai quickly backtracked.
Karzai will face close questions about that statement when he sees members of Congress and tomorrow and Thursday.
McChrystal and Eikenberry arrived ahead of Karzai as part of a schedule so tightly scripted by the White House that some senior Pentagon officials were not told of plans for the general to hold a White House press conference yesterday. They learned from reporters after the white House announced it.
That would be a first.
The strategy for the 8-year-old Afghan war is one main topic for Karzai’s meetings with officials.
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"Clinton reassures Afghans they have long-term support" by Robert Burns and Matthew Lee, Associated Press | May 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded yesterday that US relations with Afghanistan are strained, but assured President Hamid Karzai that the United States will stand behind his country long after the last American soldier is gone....
And when will that be, war criminal?
The backdrop to the meetings is a rocky relationship between the Obama administration and Karzai, and yesterday’s talks were designed to present at least the appearance of a partnership on the mend....
Please see: Why Obama Went to Afghanistan
I'm tired of BS and obfuscation, folks.
And I am TIRED of the RANK and DISINGENUOUS JOURNALISM, folks.
The Afghan leader later visited wounded US soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In remarks afterward at the State Department, he spoke of his gratitude for US sacrifices.
“To see those young American soldiers, some with very young babies and children, one who just lost both legs, the other who lost both arms and legs, it is a really painful experience, an extremely painful wound for me,’’ Karzai said. “I wish that we will have no more people losing their lives and limbs like that.’’
Related: Afghan Aloha, AmeriKa!
Yeah, he and others didn't make it home.
Also see: MSM Memories of Afghanistan's Victims
He's thanking us for s*** like that?
Karzai has a planned visit Friday to Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Airborne Division, which is deploying to Afghanistan over the next several weeks.
Yeah, PROPPING UP the DRUG TRADE the Taliban almost destroyed and ESTABLISHING CONTROL of OIL PIPELINES has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, right, MSM!
What a real PoS you truly are, telling these LIES over and over again!!
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All going great, I guess:
ARGHANDAB DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters used to swagger with impunity through this farming village, threatening to assassinate government collaborators. They seeded the main thoroughfare, a dirt road with moonlike craters, with land mines. They paid local men to attack US and Afghan troops.
Then, beginning in late February, a small detachment of US Special Forces soldiers organized nearly two dozen villagers into an armed Afghan-style neighborhood watch group.
These days, the bazaar is thriving. The schoolhouse has reopened. People in the area have become confident enough to report Taliban activity to the village defense force and the police. As a consequence, insurgent attacks have nearly ceased and US soldiers have not hit a single roadside bomb in the area in two months, according to the detachment.
“Everyone feels safer now,’’ said Nasarullah, one of two gray-bearded tribal elders in charge of the village force. “Nobody worries about getting killed anymore.’’
The rapid and profound changes have generated excitement among top US military officials in Afghanistan, fueling hope that such groups could reverse insurgent gains by providing the population a degree of protection that the police, the Afghan army and even international military forces have been unable to deliver.
But (sigh)
plans to expand the program have been stymied by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who fears the teams could turn into offensive militias, the sorts of which wreaked havoc on the country in the 1990s and prompted the rise of the Taliban. “This is playing with fire,’’ an Afghan government official said. “These groups may bring us security today, but what happens tomorrow?’’
Citing Karzai’s objections, Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, has blocked the release of money needed to broaden the initiative. He also has instructed State Department personnel in the country not to assist the effort until the Afghan government endorses it.
In addition to sharing Karzai’s concerns about what would happen to the local defense forces once US oversight ends, Eikenberry and other embassy officials worry that the program would weaken the central government in the eyes of the public and compete with efforts to build up the nation’s army and police.
“At the end of the day, how sustainable would a program like this be?’’ said a State Department official based in Kabul, who like other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal disputes.
“It runs counter to the goal of giving the state a monopoly of force.’’
That is NOT FREEDOM or LIBERATION!
That is OPPRESSION and TYRANNY!!!!!
The military’s interest in local-defense initiatives is driven in large part by President Obama’s July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing combat forces, which has increased pressure on commanders to demonstrate clear progress in their counterinsurgency mission this year.
Some military officials have expressed frustration that US diplomats in Kabul have not done more to lobby Karzai and other Afghan officials to change their minds.
But we are winning.
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