31 March 2009

Michael O'Hanlon, 'Toward Reconciliation In Afghanistan', Brookings Institution / The Washington Quarterly, 31 March 2009

EXCERPT: "How can we make sense of where the United States is in Afghanistan today? A poor country, wracked by 30 years of civil war, finds itself at the mercy of insurgents, terrorists, and narco-traffickers. NATO's economy-of-force operation there has attempted to help build a nation with very few resources....

Read the post »

31 March 2009

'Afghanistan's Poppies Pose Dilemma', USA Today, 31 March 2009

EXCERPT: "President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan calls for continuing the destruction of poppy fields, although experts and his top envoy to the region have called the practice counterproductive. Richard Holbrooke, the administration's coordinator of Afghanistan policy, said this month that eradicating the opium poppy fields is 'wasteful...

Read the post »

31 March 2009

'Afghan Leader Offers Deal To Non-Al-Qaida Taliban', The Associated Press, 31 March 2009

EXCERPT: "Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered an olive branch Tuesday to Taliban fighters who reject al-Qaida and pressed an international conference for help in strengthening Afghanistan's security forces. Sitting around a horseshoe-shaped table, Clinton said most of the Taliban fighters...

Read the post »

31 March 2009

'"Worse Than The Taliban" - New Law Rolls Back Rights For Afghan Women', The Guardian, 31 March 2009

EXCERPT: "Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalizes rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission. The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite...

Read the post »