World-News

In These Times
by Gilles Dorronsoro

05/24/10

The coalition’s strategy in Afghanistan is at an impasse. The renewed efforts undertaken since the summer of 2009 have failed to temper the guerrilla war. A few tactical successes are possible, but this war cannot be won. The coalition cannot defeat the Taliban as long as Pakistan continues to offer them sanctuary. And increasing resources to wage the war is not an option. The costs of continuing the war — to use Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s expression in the leaked telegram to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — are ‘astronomical’...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6011/the_case_for_negotiations



War in Afghanistan set to outlast Vietnam

USA Today

05/31/10

Three months after 9/11, every major Taliban city in Afghanistan had fallen — first Mazar-i-Sharif, then Kabul, finally Kandahar. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were on the run. It looked as if the war was over, and the Americans and their Afghan allies had won. Butch Ivie, then a school administrator in Winfield, Ala., remembers: ‘We thought we’d soon have it tied up in a neat little bag.’ But bin Laden and Omar eluded capture. The Taliban regrouped. Today, Kandahar again is up for grabs. And Afghanistan soon will pass Vietnam as America’s longest war...

http://tinyurl.com/2bemulk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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