Group items tagged

"Afghan-US Security Pact Talks to Officially Begin Thursday"

Trucking contractors pay off the Taliban, warlords and government officials to ensure safe passage for U.S. military goods in Afghanistan , a senior military official told a congressional oversight panel. "Some of that money, for sure, is going to the insurgency," Brig. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend said. "I can't quantify how much is going to attacks against us. . . . I don't think you can completely stop it, but we've got to minimize it.""

Afghan officials and the country's former central bank governor have been swapping blame for the worst financial crisis in Afghan history. Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, Afghan Central Bank head, fled to US after accusing powerful politicians of financial malfeasance at the largest Afghan bank, where over $900 million is missing. Afghan officials countered with an arrest warrant for Fitrat, charging him with fraud and saying that as the country's chief banker he failed to catch the illicit dealings. Kids, kids...

"The Obama administration is discussing whether to reduce American forces in Afghanistan by at least an additional 20,000 troops by 2013, reflecting a growing belief within the White House that the mission there has now reached the point of diminishing returns. "

"An Army lieutenant colonel who accused senior U.S. officials of concealing bad news about the war in Afghanistan will receive the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling on Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Lt. Col. Daniel Davis laid out his concerns in "Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan,""

"Today the news broke that United States officials, in a futile hope of quelling violence, have been party to a pernicious "catch-and-release" system that facilitated the secret release of high-level insurgent detainees, who are then free to strike at American forces again. As American taxpayers try to process these indicators of a failing war, do they also know that their taxes are helping to bankroll the Taliban?"

"The Afghan central bank's efforts to curb the exodus of money abroad are bearing fruit...The money flow-part of it suspected by U.S. and Afghan officials to be stolen foreign aid and proceeds from the drug trade-undermines the country's economy just as foreign forces depart. The cash flight also raises Western concerns about Afghanistan, already the source of most of the world's illicit opiates, becoming a global money-laundering center. "

American officials are pressing the Afghan government to prosecute a former governor for what U.S. investigators say is involvement in the killings of an American lieutenant colonel and a U.S. servicewoman, as well as other alleged crimes."

"The remains of four Indiana National Guard soldiers killed in Afghanistan last week arrived back in the United States on Sunday, met by their families and a delegation of high-ranking military officials."

"Seeking to break an impasse on a broader strategic arrangement, the United States agreed on Friday to greatly accelerate its handover of detainees to Afghan government control on but will retain a veto over which ones can be released, American officials said. "

Development in Afghanistan: ""Of course we built too much," said one official. "We didn't think about how the Afghans would pay for it. But it was understandable. Nobody is blaming the military. We wanted to show them what we could do for them, but without regard for sustainability.""

"The Afghan Taliban have closed their office in the Gulf State of Qatar at least temporarily to protest the removal of a sign they had put up identifying the movement as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, a diplomat and Taliban official said Tuesday."

"Increasingly frustrated by his dealings with President Hamid Karzai, President Obama is giving serious consideration to speeding up the withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan and to a "zero option" that would leave no American troops there after next year, according to American and European officials. "

"President Obama's national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new "strategic considerations." "

"The nation's top military official said Thursday that Pakistan's spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. "

"For some Afghan government officials in the eastern Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, paying off the Taliban on a regular basis with money or weapons and ammunition is the most reliable way of staying alive."

"President Obama will reshuffle his national security team on Thursday, naming Leon E. Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, as defense secretary and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, to lead the C.I.A., administration officials said Wednesday. "

" United States officials modified their narrative on Osama bin Laden's killing, saying that the Pakistanis had little involvement. However, well-placed security sources maintain that the operation was without a doubt a joint Pakistan-US effort and that all logistics were arranged inside Pakistan. "

"President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 "surge," by the end of next summer, according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision. These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama's military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public."

"Transcending its traditional Pashtun base, the Taliban is bolstering its influence in the central-eastern provinces by installing shadow governments and tapping into the vulnerabilities of a central government crippled by corruption and deeply dependent on a corrosive war economy. Collusion between insurgents and corrupt government officials in Kabul and the nearby provinces has increased, leading to a profusion of criminal networks in the Afghan heartland."