[Peace-discuss] The Obama administration on AfPak

[C. G. Estabrook]

Par for the course, while Bill Keller (Clintonoid, DLC, right-wing Democrat) is
executive editor of the liberal flagship. Son of a Chevron CEO, Keller was one
of the leading 'liberal' supporters of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  An accurate
account of the war in Afghanistan -- which, like an accurate account of the war
in Iraq, we won't get from the NYT -- would explain why a person like that
supports it. --CGE

David Green wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/us/politics/08holbrooke.html?_r=1&ref=europe
> 
> 
> Also disturbing, in relation to how Holbrooke will be treated by the liberal
> media, is this fawning report.
> 
> DG
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ---- From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> To:
> Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2009
> 10:17:43 PM Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Obama administration on AfPak
> 
> [While the press publishes thumbsuckers (journalese for will-he-or-won't-he
> think pieces, etc.) on Afghanistan, the man Obama chose to run his
> administration's policy in the crucial theatre of the SW Asian war (while
> Gen. Petraeus flips coins at the Super Bowl) makes clear the USG plans to the
> people who matter -- the Nato and other states who will be asked to back
> them.  The war in Afghanistan (really against Pakistan) will be “much tougher
> than Iraq,” says the egregious Richard Holbrooke, and longer than the 14-year
> war in Vietnam. Obama's down with that.  --CGE]
> 
> The New York Times February 9, 2009 Holbrooke Says Afghan War ‘Tougher Than
> Iraq’ By NICHOLAS KULISH and HELENE COOPER
> 
> MUNICH — The war in Afghanistan will be “much tougher than Iraq,” President
> Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan said at a security
> conference here on Sunday.
> 
> “There is no magic formula in Afghanistan,” the envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke,
> warned an audience of European policy makers and military planners. “There is
> no Dayton agreement in Afghanistan,” he added, referring to the peace accord
> he negotiated to end the war in Bosnia. “It’s going to be a long, difficult
> struggle.”
> 
> Mr. Holbrooke was part of a high-level American delegation at the annual
> Munich Security Conference over the weekend. The group, led by Vice President
> Joseph R. Biden Jr. and including Gen. James L. Jones, the national security
> adviser, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central
> Command, did not paint a rosy picture of the situation in Afghanistan.
> 
> The American view of Afghanistan’s problems differed from that of the
> country’s president, Hamid Karzai, who also spoke Sunday.
> 
> While Mr. Karzai acknowledged the security problems, he said that great
> progress had been made, from roads to schools to health services. In an
> address that at times sounded defensive, he said Afghanistan was neither a
> “narco-state” nor a “failed state,” as critics have labeled it.
> 
> Mr. Karzai called again for reconciliation with Taliban forces “who are not
> part of Al Qaeda, who are not part of terrorist networks, who want to return
> to their country.” He also criticized NATO over the number of civilian
> casualties it has caused in the course of battling the insurgency.
> 
> American officials at the conference questioned the gap between Mr. Karzai’s
> presentation of reality and what they see as the facts on the ground. The
> pervasive corruption in the country is viewed as a central reason that the
> Afghan leader has fallen out of favor with the Obama administration. Mr.
> Karzai faces an election in August.
> 
> General Petraeus’s comments, on the other hand, were greatly anticipated as
> the final day of the conference got under way. He is widely credited for the
> improved security situation in Iraq, where he was the senior commander during
> the troop increase known as the surge. Expectations are running high that he
> can repeat the success of that strategy in Afghanistan.
> 
> General Petraeus spoke of the need for outposts and patrol bases in the
> provinces. “You can’t commute to work” when conducting counterinsurgency
> operations, he said Sunday. “A nuanced appreciation of local situations is
> essential” to understanding “the tribal structures, the power brokers, the
> good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history,” he said.
> 
> “There has been nothing easy about Afghanistan,” said General Petraeus,
> adding that he “would be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to
> examine very closely what forces and other contributions they can provide”
> ahead of the elections in August. He said needs included not only ground
> forces but also an array of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,
> military police officers, special operations, cargo and attack helicopters
> and more. Mr. Obama is planning to send as many as 30,000 additional troops
> to try to turn the tide in the war against insurgents.
> 
> Some NATO allies have been slow to contribute additional forces.
> 
> In his comments, General Jones was critical of the effort to stabilize the
> country thus far. “The international coordination was spotty at best,” he
> said. “We tended to focus too much on the military reconstruction part, which
> was important but not the only thing that should have been done.”
> 
> The Americans were not alone in their calls for a more robust effort. Radek
> Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland, called Afghanistan a test for NATO,
> and emphasized that the security situation had to improve immediately. “If
> this year we don’t turn the tide, it’s going to be much harder later on,” he
> said.
> 
> Britain’s defense secretary, John Hutton, made what may have been the
> harshest comments directed at the alliance’s prosecution of the war, accusing
> NATO of an obsession with bureaucracy. “What I want from NATO is more of a
> wartime mentality,” he said.
> 
> In an interview on Saturday, Vice President Biden expressed sympathy for Mr.
> Karzai for the challenges he faces in governing Afghanistan. “Karzai has an
> incredibly difficult job,” he said.
> 
> “Do I think — me speaking, Joe Biden — think he could do more? Yes. Do I
> understand why from his perspective he might think he couldn’t do more? Yes.
> Does there ultimately over the next year have to be a change in appointing
> strong governors? Having a police force that is free of corruption? Cracking
> down more on the corruption within his own government? The answer is yes.
> Yes, all of the above has to occur.”
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/world/europe/09munich.html?ref=world