Results tagged “Awakening” from SpyTalk

Afghans Scoff at Biden Statement that 70 Per Cent of Taliban Would Defect

By Jeff Stein | March 10, 2009 2:55 PM | | Comments (0)

Vice President Joseph R. Biden more than backed up his boss's view Tuesday that U.S. and NATO troops are not winning the war in Afghanistan.

"We are not now winning the war, but the war is far from lost," Biden told a news conference in Brussels today after three hours of talks with NATO allies.

But an assertion by Biden that 70 percent of Taliban guerrillas could be persuaded to stop fighting or turn against their Afghan brothers-in-arms drew scoffs from experts in Kabul.

Tags: Afghanistan, Afghan_War, Awakening, Iraq, Joseph_R._Biden, Obama, Pakistan, Pashtun, Qaseem_Akhgar, Sunni, Taliban, Waheed_Mozhdah

Continue reading Afghans Scoff at Biden Statement that 70 Per Cent of Taliban Would Defect.

'Awakening' Strategy Won't Work in Afghanistan, Top U.S. General Says

By Jeff Stein | October 2, 2008 3:20 PM | | Comments (0)

The top American commander in Afghanistan says the so-called 'Awakening' strategy that has worked so well in Iraq can't be replicated in Afghanistan.

"The difference in Afghanistan is that there needs to be an Afghan-led effort to engage the tribes," General David D. McKiernan said in passage buried deep in a New York Times story about U.S. efforts to crush the drug trade in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, U.S. commanders paid Sunni tribes that had been attacking American troops to switch sides and go after al Qaeda guerrillas, who were mostly foreign fighters. 

Most analysts credit that, rather than the "surge," as the major factor in the dramatically reduced violence in Iraq this year.

But in Afghanistan, McKiernan said, there "is a degree of complexity in the tribal system which is much greater than what I found in Iraq years ago."

He added. "And I also find that of the over 400 major tribal networks inside of Afghanistan, they have been largely, as I said earlier, traumatized by over 30 years of war, so a lot of that traditional tribal structure has broken down."

Back in Iraq, meanwhile, the Shia-led Baghdad government seems poised to put a pillow over the Awakening, according to many accounts.

One of the most revealing comes is an interview with the Awakening's Baghdad leader, conducted by Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation magazine.

Abu Azzam tells Dreyfuss that the Sunnis will take up the gun against the Americans again if the Shia-led government tries to put it out of business. Read the fascinating piece here.

Tags: Afghanistan, Awakening, David D. McKiernan, iraq, Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation magazine