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Abstract: Opening statement by Senator Kerry: "This is the first Congressional hearing that I know of that is dedicated to this issue of reconciliation. It comes at a timely moment. Last week, representatives from 65 countries gathered in Kabul for a conference to debate security, development and reconciliation. This conference was a good step forward in showing the world that Afghanistan wants to run its own affairs. But many steps need to be taken by the Afghan government and international coalition to make this a reality." Senator Lugar also presents a statement, followed by panel presentations by The Honorable Ryan C. Crocker, Ms. Zainab Salbi, and Dr. David Kilcullen. Transcripts of the testimonies are available on the same page as the audiovisual.
Abstract: Afghan's corruption-laden government is not delivering on promises of security or justice, and disillusioned Afghans are reluctantly turning to the Taliban as a tolerable alternative. Promoting effective governance in the country could help reduce recruitment.
Abstract: As the United States unveils a new Afghanistan strategy and announces an increase in troop levels, the prospects for finishing the job and ending the conflict remain unclear. In a new video Q&A, Gilles Dorronsoro analyzes the war in Afghanistan and outlines what a successful U.S. strategy should include.
“It’s the last call in Afghanistan,” says Dorronsoro. The United States still has an opportunity to avoid defeat, but it needs to reallocate troops out of the countryside and protect the cities. “If we don't get the right strategy, it will be over in the next two or three years.”
Abstract: As Afghanistan grapples with contentious elections, U.S. military leaders there describe the country’s security situation as “serious and deteriorating.” Just back from a month of in-depth research and travel in the country, Gilles Dorronsoro spoke with the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung about conditions on the ground—security, public opinion and the elections—and discussed the long-term strategies of the International Coalition and the Taliban.
Abstract: CNAS Fellow Andrew Exum looks ahead to what's next in Afghanistan, specifically the Obama Administration's strategy and how to measure success, with C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
Abstract: This year bomb attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan have spiked to an all-time high, with 465 in May alone, more than double the number in the same month two years earlier. At least 46 American troops have been killed by improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s, this year, putting 2009 on track to set a record in the eight-year war.
Abstract: The international coalition cannot defeat the Taliban without a strengthened Afghan state. It should work through the Afghan government—rather than international agencies—to increase economic opportunity and foster effective political institutions at the district and province level. Visiting Washington after Afghanistan, UK Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander told an audience the Carnegie Endowment that Afghans need to see their government, rather than the international coalition or non-governmental organizations—or the Taliban—delivering improvements if the Afghan state is going to be viable in the long-term. He cited improved security and increased access to justice as the top development priorities, with health, education, and other basic services as critical but secondary. Alexander also called on the international community to support Pakistan's efforts to combat extremism in the provinces bordering Afghanistan.
Abstract: Former Taliban leaders and US counter-insurgency experts explore the Taliban's motivations, and whether the US military is making progress in understanding them.
One challenge that US policy makers face regarding Iran is the very nature of its Islamic form of government. To put it in very simple terms, Islam's many manifestations are hard for Westerners to fully understand. Yet, this can be crucial. In Afghanistan, for example, the outcome of the war may depend on how well US military commanders understand the Taliban. The militants who are now waging a guerrilla war against American forces are rooted in a complex Islamic movement.
Reporter Charles Sennott has covered the Taliban from their early days.He's produced a series of four reports on the movement's history and fluctuating fortunes.The series is a partnership between PRI's "The World" and Globalpost.com, an international news website that Sennott co-founded.
In this report, Sennott met with former Taliban leaders and tried to determine if US forces are making progress in their quest to understand their enemy.
Abstract: Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has issued a call for a criminal probe in the wake of a major New York Times story by James Risen with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002. ("U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.s Died" - NYTimes.com http://bit.ly/wHwpc)
PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.
According to US government documents obtained by PHR, as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the US in November 2001. The bodies were reportedly buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e-Leili desert near Sheberghan, Afghanistan. Notorious Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was reportedly on the CIA payroll, is allegedly responsible for the massacre.
This video, detailing nearly eight years of advocacy and investigation by Physicians for Human Rights, explores the events surrounding the massacre and subsequent cover-up.
Abstract: CNAS Senior Fellow Tom Ricks, CNAS advisor David Kilcullen, and Lieutenant General David Barno, USA, discussed the new strategy in Afghanistan on the Charlie Rose Show.
Abstract: CNAS President John Nagl sat down with the News Hour with Jim Lehrer to discuss the heightened U.S. efforts to improve security in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "It is very strongly in America's national interest to do all that it can to stabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Nagl. Joining Nagl on the News Hour was Boston University Professor Andrew Bacevich, who will be a panelist at the CNAS "Striking a Balance: A New American Security" conference on June 11.
Abstract: President Barack Obama, flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, announced the new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan on March 27th. But the administration is already scrambling to keep up with deteriorating events.
With the appropriate huzzahs for President Barack Obama's first 100 days still ringing in the air, his new AfPak strategy, for the linked crisis of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is already in deep trouble. Events have accelerated beyond the assumptions underlying it, especially in Pakistan, and much of the past few days in the administration was taken up with re-strategizing, including discussions on Air Force One as the president flew back-and-forth for a Missouri town hall yesterday and a full-scale National Security Council session before that.
Abstract: As we mark Obama's first 100 Days, there is much to celebrate--from repeal of the global gag rule to the passage of the stimulus and the Administration's pledge to close Guantanamo. The budget, a smart blueprint to build a new economy, will demand that progressives mobilize to take on well-funded lobbies intent on obstructing real reform.
Yet, as I think about the most troubling aspects of these first 100 days, there are two areas which I fear could endanger the Obama Presidency: the bank bailouts and military escalation in Afghanistan.
Americans deserve a real national debate about the Administration's plans in Afghanistan--its ends and means and exits--before undertaking such a major military commitment. That's why Brave New Foundation's work is so essential: with its new documentary Rethink Afghanistan and online debates such as the one CAP's Lawrence Korb and I had last week, BNF is fostering the kind of discussion, debate and dissent that Obama has said he welcomes. BNF's work--along with a network of bloggers, progressive leaders, magazines like The Nation, peace and justice groups--is launching much-needed Congressional hearings on vital areas such as the role and goals of the US military in Afghanistan, oversight of contractors, transparent budgeting and clear metrics to measure progress toward a defined exit strategy.
Abstract: Rethink Afghanistan is a ground-breaking, full-length documentary focusing on the key issues surrounding this war. By releasing this film in parts for free online, we are able to stay on top of news of the war as it continues to unfold. We hope to raise critical questions regarding Afghanistan that Congress must address in oversight hearings, which inform the public and challenge policymakers. We strive for more discussion among experts on Afghanistan, like the debates seen below released in conjunction with our documentary campaign
Abstract: “More money has been appropriated for reconstruction in Iraq than for Germany and Japan combined between 1946 and 1952, with inflation adjusted,” said Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and advisor to Middle East Progress, at a CAP event on Monday entitled, “Preventing Waste and Fraud in Afghanistan and Pakistan Spending.”
Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and author of the book Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Major General Arnold Fields (Ret.) joined Katulis for the discussion.
Abstract: In the past four years, 5,000 young men have graduated from Afghanistan's national police academy. After three months of training, new recruits join a fledgling police force that's been tasked not only with reducing ordinary crime but also fighting terrorism. There's no doubt it's a dangerous job. Casualties among Afghan policemen outnumber casualties of Afghan soldiers fourfold. But in recent years there has been growing international interest in helping to train and reform the Afghan national police force as the guarantor of law and order in the country.
Last summer, FRONTLINE/World reporter Nadene Ghouri traveled to Kabul, the nation's capital, to report on the efforts of one of the city's leading police units: the Criminal Investigations Department, or CID. There, she met General Ali Shah Paktiawal, the department's brash, abrasive, and seemingly ubiquitous chief. Dubbed the James Bond of Kabul, General Paktiawal is known for showing up at almost every major crime scene. He says, "There are two words not in my vocabulary. One is 'problem,' and the other is 'fear.' I don't know fear."
Paktiawal agreed to allow Ghouri and a small camera crew to film the team's daily activities.
The footage Ghouri captured is a raw glimpse into Afghan policing at the street level. Over the course of several days, the team investigates a terrorist bombing attack, kidnappings, and armed robbery. They also conduct raids on an illegal black market for police equipment, and a notorious haven for the city's drug addicts.
Twenty-four hours a day, General Paktiawal is surrounded by his hand-picked bodyguards -- men he's nicknamed Bulldozer, Switch, and Scorpion. Officially, they are responsible for protecting Paktiawal from assassination attempts, but Paktiawal's protectors also take part in law enforcement activities, despite their lack of police training.
Hamed, or "Bulldozer," tells Ghouri that he has a reputation for aggression. "I usually wear gloves. They are very useful. I wear them during the operations. There might be cars or some glass to break, or we catch some murderers and have to hit them in the face or round the back of the head," says Bulldozer.
Ghouri catches Paktiawal and the CID team at a critical moment in Kabul's evolving security situation. NATO forces are about to hand over control of the city to local police and the Afghan military. At the same time, terrorist attacks on the city are on the rise. Once considered relatively well-protected, the capital has come under brazen attacks when the Taliban targeted several government ministries in the heart of the city. Ghouri raises the question: Is this the force to bring law and order to Afghanistan?
Abstract: Newfound hopes for stability in Iraq have shifted the U.S. military focus back to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one of the most volatile border regions in the world. What impact will this renewed interest have on the two states as well as on U.S. defense strategy?
Abstract: A panel of experts, including former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Jalali, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Dr. Fredrick W. Kagan, and Slate Magazine columnist Fred Kaplan, joined Korb to discuss the report, President Barack Obama’s new strategy, and the current situation in Afghanistan.
Abstract: A new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan will be unveiled by President Barack Obama this week. A centerpiece of the new strategy is a plan to ramp up the training of the Afghan army and police at a cost of some $2 billion a year, an astronomical sum in Afghanistan where the entire government budget is about half that amount. Another key part of the plan is expected to be an effort to divide and conquer the Taliban with a mix of negotiations and targeted missile strikes in Pakistan.
CorpWatch, in association with KPFA radio, traveled to Afghanistan recently to interview a variety of Afghans from students to parliamentarians on their views of what Obama should do in their country. A video version of our interviews can be seen here.
Sitting in his darkened apartment in Kabul, a victim of the many power cuts in the capital city, Mir Ahmed Joyenda, an Afghan member of parliament, summed up the hopes and anxieties of many Afghans when he told us: “First of all, they should build (up) the Afghan army to defend the country. Second of all they should not plan attacks by B52s, Chinooks or pilot-less planes, they should have coordination with the Afghan army. Thirdly they should change their policy on the economic development of Afghanistan – it should be tangible for the people to have change in their lives."
Obama's new plan, which will aim to double the current size of the security forces to 400,000 troops and national police officers, may reassure Joyenda, but the ongoing program of missile strikes will not. Whether or not Obama will significantly increase and improve economic assistance to Afghanistan is a question that will only be answered over time.
To date most foreign economic assistance to Afghanistan has targeted the Taliban strongholds and the opium growing areas in the South, ignoring the needs of the majority of the country. Even the ancient Silk Road town of Bamiyan, the country's largest tourist attraction, with stunning archaeological and natural beauty (and the former site of the millennia-old Buddhas of Bamiyan, dynamited by the Taliban in 2001), has been ignored by the United States. A CorpWatch and KPFA video on the lack of basic services such as electricity and potable water in this region may be seen here.
Abstract: CNAS President and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl spoke with Rachel Maddow about Afghanistan. Nagl said, "Quite frankly we haven't had enough forces on the ground in Afghanistan and most importantly we haven't put enough resources into building an Afghan Army so the Afghans can secure their own country."
Abstract: As President Obama announced this week that the U.S is sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, we spoke with reporter Jason Motlagh, who has just returned from spending two months with U.S troops in several troubled Afghan provinces along the Pakistan border.
Motlagh has been traveling to Afghanistan for the past three years, spending time on the streets of Kabul, in refugee camps and most recently embedded with troops. With Taliban gains and civilian and military casualties on the rise, he shares dramatic photographs and video and calls what he witnessed there "a hard fight."
Jason Motlagh is a freelance journalist based in South Asia, where he has been reporting on conflicts throughout the region. His reporting and photographs have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Times, U.S. News and World Report, The Washington Post and The Economist. He receives support for his work from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Abstract: Lt. Col. John Nagl helped write the book on military tactics in Iraq that has been credited for bringing some stability to region. It's called The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
In an article for Foreign Policy, Nagl writes that he believes lessons learned in Iraq could help the U.S. implement a "more creative and aggressive strategy" to stabilize Afghanistan.
Abstract: When the publication of the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq made prisoner abuse an international controversy in April, 2004, both the National Security Archive and Washington Media Associates were already pursuing the story.
Award-winning producer Sherry Jones was in the final stages of editing the first full-length television investigation of the Administration's detention and interrogation policies, with a focus on the detention camp at Guantanamo. That ABC news special, "Peter Jennings Reporting: Guantanamo" aired on June 25, 2004.
The Archive had just published a reference collection of more than 1500 documents on U.S. counter-terrorism policy - from the earliest plane hijacking crises in 1968 through the war in Afghanistan in 2002 - and had filed hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests for Bush administration documents on terrorism and detention policies.
In May, 2004 the Archive was the first to post on the web the historic CIA interrogation manuals that were precursors to the treatment of prisoners in U.S custody during the war on terror. In June and July, 2004 the Archive added the full posting of the administration's legal and decision memos on interrogation policies - from the officially released papers, and the more revealing leaked documents.
Over the next two years, Washington Media would keep in touch with its sources and keep on the story. And the Archive would collect thousands of primary source documents, thanks to a multitude of investigations, leaks, journalistic coups, and successful lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Associated Press, and others. In January, 2007, the Archive and Washington Media decided to join forces, as we had done on documentary film projects over the past 20 years. The results are seen on this web site: The documentary, "Torturing Democracy," and the first stage of a comprehensive Torture Archive that aims to serve as the online institutional memory of the essential documentary evidence.
Abstract: Sara Daniel, grand reporter au Nouvel Observateur, a dirigé l’ouvrage "Guerres d’aujourd’hui : pourquoi ces conflits ? Peut-on les résoudre ?" (Editions delaVilla). De retour d’un déplacement au Pakistan, elle répond à nos questions :
- Dans vos récents reportages, vous dites que le Pakistan est un pays au bord de l’explosion. Cela est-il palpable au quotidien ?
- George W. Bush a récemment déclaré "Si certains se sentent à l’aise au Pakistan pour s’attaquer aux infrastructures, aux citoyens et aux troupes, il sera difficile de l’emporter en Afghanistan." Pensez-vous également que la résolution des conflits et tensions de la région, notamment en Afghanistan, réside au Pakistan ?
- Comment pensez-vous que la situation va évoluer dans la région ?
