President Obama welcomed Senator David Boren and Senator Chuck Hagel asco-chairmen of his Intelligence Advisory Board. “I look forward toworking with Chuck and David in their new roles — they will report tome, they will have my full support, and they will have the fullcooperation of my national security staff,” Obama said. ThePresident continued his remarks by commenting on his intendedtransparency, where appropriate, when it comes to the IAB.
BAGRAM, Afghanistan — In March, ordnance exploded on a home in Kapisa province, in northeast Afghanistan. One child died. Another, 6-year-old Razia, was badly burned. When Aziz, her father, took her in his arms, Razia’s scalp came away in his hands. In early interviews, Aziz blamed the explosion on the U.S.-led coalition. U.S. Air Force officers said the ordnance might have been white phosphorous, a specialized incendiary that the Taliban is unlikely to possess. Later, Aziz claimed the Taliban had, in fact, fired rockets on his home. Regardless of who actually caused Razia’s injuries, it was the Americans that evacuated […]
U.S. Senator John Kerry suggests that a surge in Afghanistan would be too much too fast. VOA News reports.
World Politics Review managing editor Judah Grunstein appeared on Bloggingheads.tv today with the New America Foundation’s Michael Cohen to discuss counterinsurgency and the Afghanistan War.
Various forms of cancer kill roughly 565,000 Americans per year, while tobacco kills around 440,000, and obesity causes perhaps another 400,000 or more deaths. Approximately 1.7 million patients develop infections annually while undergoing treatment in U.S. hospitals, resulting in an estimated 99,000 deaths. These four causes account for roughly 1.5 million U.S. deaths per year, every year. A single organism, Clostridium difficile, causes some 450,000 infections and between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths per year. Meanwhile, throughout the entire 20th century, bioterrorism killed a grand total of zero U.S. citizens, and just five to date in the 21st century. Nevertheless, following […]
If you ask Spc. Daniel McBroom of the Army National Guard, the hardest part of war was the wind. “Physically and mentally, the wind was the worst,” he recalls. “This endless hot wind, like 100-degree fans turned toward your body.” But McBroom, 23, who returned in June after serving a year in Iraq, says that the toll of war will be different for everyone. “There’s no doubt it will mark you, change your body. But I don’t think anyone can predict what that change will be.” McBroom is one of nearly 1.5 million Americans enlisted in the U.S. armed forces, […]
A bipartisan commission last week reiterated its warning that the U.S. government is responding inadequately to the threat of bioterrorism. Shortly before last fall’s national election, the U.S. Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism issued its major report (.pdf), “World at Risk.” It included detailed guidance to the next U.S. presidential administration about what steps to take to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction or their potential use by terrorists. The commission’s latest report (.pdf), affirms that, “Progress has been made, but the clock is ticking.” Like “World at Risk,” the October […]
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Party agreed to form a new government with the upstart conservative Free Democrats on Saturday, setting the stage for major changes in both German domestic and foreign policies. The CDU and the FDP, which is led by Guido Westerwelle, have been locked in tough negotiations over both cabinet appointments and policy platforms for weeks. Westerwelle, who is expected to be named foreign minister, was pushing for tax cuts of $52 billion, while Merkel was advocating much more modest cuts. In the end, it appears as if Merkel was the one […]
Charlie Rose interviewed the New York Times’ David Rohde who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan for seven months before escaping.
Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton urged the international community to strengthen and focus non-proliferation efforts in a speech given at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She discussed the IAEA’s need for rights and resources upgrading. “All states with nuclear materials or technology have a responsibility to protect them against theft or illicit transfer,” she said.
NATO defense ministers endorsed General McChrystal’s Afghanistanstrategy, to reinforce interaction between military efforts and civilreconstruction and development, at a Defence Ministers session inBratislava. Robert Raffaele reports for VOA News.
At a Brookings Institution event on Oct. 16, “The Afghanistan Debate: Assessing the President’s Policy Options,” Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel and Georgetown Visiting Professor Paul Pillar disagreed on the merit of military engagement in Afghanistan. Riedel says President Obama’s assessment of the volatile situation in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan is not only correct, but reason to continue military efforts in the region. Pillar’s approach to military presence in Afghanistan is much more cautionary. He says that regardless of stabilization, terrorism will continue to spread globally.
NEW DELHI — India has long seen a reconstruction role for itself in Afghanistan, despite its lack of direct military involvement in the country. Its interests there are obvious: A strong Kabul that keeps the Taliban — and by extension al-Qaida — in check also ensures that jihadi forces in Pakistan do not use Afghanistan as a backyard assembly line for militants who can then be turned against India, and the rest of the world. But New Delhi is not finding its Afghan sojourn easy. Earlier this month, the Indian embassy in Kabul was attacked for the second time in […]
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released a report detailing the effects of a $15 billion industry – the Afghan opium trade. The report connects instability in Central Asia and global heroin addiction to the Taliban-taxed drug. The UNODC explains that insurgent groups derive anywhere from $90-160 million in revenue from opium taxes and that the trade could be financing insurgents across borders. Paradoxically, as the drug is globally smuggled, leaving a trail of addiction in places such as India and China, wealthier nations are intercepting less of the drug at their borders.
New York Times Columnist Roger Cohen says Israel needs to tone down their rhetoric in dealing with Iran. The seasoned journalist talks to Charlie Rose and says that it would be unlikely for Israel to take military action against Iran while President Obama is in office. He also discusses the contested definition of a war crime with regards to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — The observation post near Route Georgia — the U.S. military’s codename for one of the roads running through this eastern province — had a power problem. In the rugged, breadbasket district of Baraki Barak, 50 miles south of Kabul, there are just a few hundred* American soldiers and a similar number of Afghan security forces to provide security for tens of thousands of farmers and their families. To keep watch over the district between foot and vehicle patrols, the U.S. Army’s 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry built observation posts atop mountain “spurs” — ridges, essentially — and […]
A decade after the U.S. Senate declined to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), President Barack Obama is preparing an effort to reverse that decision. But to secure Senate backing this time around, the Obama administration must first overcome residual concerns among some senators that the treaty will harm U.S. national security. The CTBT prohibits all nuclear explosions, whether for military or other purposes, in any environment. Its practical effect would be to extend test prohibitions contained in current treaties and agreements to include underground testing of all nuclear explosive devices, the last domain not formally prohibited by existing […]