What others are reporting on Afghanistan
Perusing my morning read, I read about the latest Canadian military casualty in Afghanistan (the 151st), and an editorial in support of our troops remaining in that country beyond the 2011 authorization voted by MPs:
“The latest conference on Afghanistan set 2014 as the date for the assumption of military control of the country by Afghans. It is an ambitious timetable, and one that will require defeat of, or reconciliation with, the Taliban. With defeat unlikely, Canada expressed support for reconciliation at the conference. Now Canada must make sure it stays around, training troops and maintaining an energetic presence, to help give effect to reconciliation.”
On the front page of the Globe, I read this report on yesterday’s international conference:
“The largest cadre of foreign ministers to descend on Afghanistan in three decades underwent an astonishing political conversion on Tuesday, turning from skeptics to advocates of the Afghan government’s ambitious plan to take over all security responsibilities in the country by 2014.
In the process Western leaders quietly anointed 2014 as the war’s unofficial end date – in spite of serious flaws in President Hamid Karzai’s timeline – a move that could now mark Canada’s intended 2011 withdrawal as premature.”
Hmmn ...
In the New York Times, I read:
A seemingly routine training practice in marksmanship went fatally wrong on Tuesday when an Afghan Army sergeant turned his weapon on an American trainer and a gunfight began. When it was over, the sergeant, two American trainers and an Afghan soldier who had been standing nearby lay dead ….
General Patton said that he was uncertain about the motives of the Afghan sergeant, but that the military considered it “an isolated incident.”
If the sergeant’s actions proved to be deliberate, however, it would be the second time this month that an Afghan soldier purposefully killed members of the foreign forces here in the nearly nine-year-old war.
Also in the New York Times, I read this report on yesterday’s international conference:
American, European and other foreign leaders met here Tuesday to pledge anew their support for Afghanistan, agree to entrust it with more spending decisions, and embrace its president’s commitment for Afghan forces to take charge of security by 2014. They acknowledged that neither the public in their own countries nor the Afghan people had much patience left.
The transition timetable, which President Hamid Karzai outlined last year, is nonbinding and essentially unenforceable, and much depends on how and when responsibilities will be transferred. The conference’s final statement stopped short of any firm commitment to the timetable, instead expressing “support for the president of Afghanistan’s objective.”
Behind the pay-wall of the Wall Street Journal, Canada’s (and the Dutch) withdrawal is reported as a fait accompli:
The 2014 timeline, first laid out by Mr. Karzai in his inauguration speech last year, is highly symbolic, signaling to his own people that foreign troops won't indefinitely control the fight against the Taliban and potentially easing war-weariness in the U.S. and Europe.
But the deadline is essentially hollow. Dutch and Canadian troops are already getting ready to depart Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has said American soldiers will start pulling out next summer, although many troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan for years to come.
From across the pond, I read this report behind the pay-wall of the Times of London:
Nato leaders are divided over the speed with which they can start handing parts of Afghanistan back to Afghan forces, it emerged yesterday, as Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, acknowledged widespread doubts over “whether success is even possible”.
As David Cameron and President Obama met in Washington presenting a united front and President Karzai reaffirmed at an international conference in Kabul his commitment to have Afghan forces take control by 2014, Nato’s top commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and the organisation’s Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, are split on how soon the transfer process can start.
Sources close to both men said that there had been tense talks in the past week, culminating in an acrimonious video conference between Kabul and Brussels at which the two men laid their disagreements bare. Mr Rasmussen, a former Danish Foreign Minister, wants the safest provinces to be “transitioned” within the next few months, before a Nato summit in Lisbon on November 20. Sources close to General Petraeus, who assumed command in Kabul three weeks ago, said that he wanted to wait until next summer.
The Guardian serves up this report on yesterday’s international conference:
Plans to begin handing control of provinces in Afghanistan to Afghan security forces by the end of this year have been quietly dropped amid fears among European countries that General David Petraeus, the new US commander in the country, is less committed to a speedy transfer of power.
The change of tack, revealed in the final communique from today's historic international conference in Kabul, reflects Petraeus's concerns that security conditions in Afghanistan are too weak for a transition of power to begin as quickly as originally planned, a Nato official told the Guardian.
Although the conference agreed that the security needs of the entire country will have to be met by the Afghan army and police by 2014, major European troop contributors were looking forward to more rapid progress in the relatively stable north and west of the country, where Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and others have personnel.
Finally, though the Guardian report is described as an “exclusive,” the Washington Post serves up an interesting variation on the theme:
Even as diplomats endorsed the Afghans' plans for a mechanism to assess which provinces would be first to come under Afghan security control, the expected date of those first steps receded.
NATO foreign ministers who met in Estonia in April expected that some provinces would be chosen for Afghan control by November, at another NATO conference in Lisbon, according to diplomats and NATO officials in Kabul.
But with the deteriorating war and the arrival of Gen. David H. Petraeus as top commander, officials now expect it will be at least the summer of 2011 before the first provinces shift to Afghan control. The delay has worried some of the Europeans who are eager to show progress to their skeptical publics. To others, it is merely a dose of reality.
.
Perusing my morning read, I read about the latest Canadian military casualty in Afghanistan (the 151st), and an editorial in support of our troops remaining in that country beyond the 2011 authorization voted by MPs:
“The latest conference on Afghanistan set 2014 as the date for the assumption of military control of the country by Afghans. It is an ambitious timetable, and one that will require defeat of, or reconciliation with, the Taliban. With defeat unlikely, Canada expressed support for reconciliation at the conference. Now Canada must make sure it stays around, training troops and maintaining an energetic presence, to help give effect to reconciliation.”
On the front page of the Globe, I read this report on yesterday’s international conference:
“The largest cadre of foreign ministers to descend on Afghanistan in three decades underwent an astonishing political conversion on Tuesday, turning from skeptics to advocates of the Afghan government’s ambitious plan to take over all security responsibilities in the country by 2014.
In the process Western leaders quietly anointed 2014 as the war’s unofficial end date – in spite of serious flaws in President Hamid Karzai’s timeline – a move that could now mark Canada’s intended 2011 withdrawal as premature.”
Hmmn ...
In the New York Times, I read:
A seemingly routine training practice in marksmanship went fatally wrong on Tuesday when an Afghan Army sergeant turned his weapon on an American trainer and a gunfight began. When it was over, the sergeant, two American trainers and an Afghan soldier who had been standing nearby lay dead ….
General Patton said that he was uncertain about the motives of the Afghan sergeant, but that the military considered it “an isolated incident.”
If the sergeant’s actions proved to be deliberate, however, it would be the second time this month that an Afghan soldier purposefully killed members of the foreign forces here in the nearly nine-year-old war.
Also in the New York Times, I read this report on yesterday’s international conference:
American, European and other foreign leaders met here Tuesday to pledge anew their support for Afghanistan, agree to entrust it with more spending decisions, and embrace its president’s commitment for Afghan forces to take charge of security by 2014. They acknowledged that neither the public in their own countries nor the Afghan people had much patience left.
The transition timetable, which President Hamid Karzai outlined last year, is nonbinding and essentially unenforceable, and much depends on how and when responsibilities will be transferred. The conference’s final statement stopped short of any firm commitment to the timetable, instead expressing “support for the president of Afghanistan’s objective.”
Behind the pay-wall of the Wall Street Journal, Canada’s (and the Dutch) withdrawal is reported as a fait accompli:
The 2014 timeline, first laid out by Mr. Karzai in his inauguration speech last year, is highly symbolic, signaling to his own people that foreign troops won't indefinitely control the fight against the Taliban and potentially easing war-weariness in the U.S. and Europe.
But the deadline is essentially hollow. Dutch and Canadian troops are already getting ready to depart Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has said American soldiers will start pulling out next summer, although many troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan for years to come.
From across the pond, I read this report behind the pay-wall of the Times of London:
Nato leaders are divided over the speed with which they can start handing parts of Afghanistan back to Afghan forces, it emerged yesterday, as Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, acknowledged widespread doubts over “whether success is even possible”.
As David Cameron and President Obama met in Washington presenting a united front and President Karzai reaffirmed at an international conference in Kabul his commitment to have Afghan forces take control by 2014, Nato’s top commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and the organisation’s Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, are split on how soon the transfer process can start.
Sources close to both men said that there had been tense talks in the past week, culminating in an acrimonious video conference between Kabul and Brussels at which the two men laid their disagreements bare. Mr Rasmussen, a former Danish Foreign Minister, wants the safest provinces to be “transitioned” within the next few months, before a Nato summit in Lisbon on November 20. Sources close to General Petraeus, who assumed command in Kabul three weeks ago, said that he wanted to wait until next summer.
The Guardian serves up this report on yesterday’s international conference:
Plans to begin handing control of provinces in Afghanistan to Afghan security forces by the end of this year have been quietly dropped amid fears among European countries that General David Petraeus, the new US commander in the country, is less committed to a speedy transfer of power.
The change of tack, revealed in the final communique from today's historic international conference in Kabul, reflects Petraeus's concerns that security conditions in Afghanistan are too weak for a transition of power to begin as quickly as originally planned, a Nato official told the Guardian.
Although the conference agreed that the security needs of the entire country will have to be met by the Afghan army and police by 2014, major European troop contributors were looking forward to more rapid progress in the relatively stable north and west of the country, where Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and others have personnel.
Finally, though the Guardian report is described as an “exclusive,” the Washington Post serves up an interesting variation on the theme:
Even as diplomats endorsed the Afghans' plans for a mechanism to assess which provinces would be first to come under Afghan security control, the expected date of those first steps receded.
NATO foreign ministers who met in Estonia in April expected that some provinces would be chosen for Afghan control by November, at another NATO conference in Lisbon, according to diplomats and NATO officials in Kabul.
But with the deteriorating war and the arrival of Gen. David H. Petraeus as top commander, officials now expect it will be at least the summer of 2011 before the first provinces shift to Afghan control. The delay has worried some of the Europeans who are eager to show progress to their skeptical publics. To others, it is merely a dose of reality.
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