Afghanistan

The Afghan Pajhwok News Agency reports a seeming discrepancy between statements of NATO and US officials with regard to when the Afghanistan mission will wind up. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen foresaw the beginning of a withdrawal in 2011 and a certain end to those troops’ combat missions by the end if 2014. In contrast […]

Afghanistan

Southern Afghans Have Never Heard of 9/11

Juan Cole

An opinion survey carried out in Helmand and Kandahar provinces showed that 92% of the Afghan respondents (1000 men) had never heard of 9/11. Most Americans are ambivalent about the Afghanistan War precisely because it is hard to dismiss the argument that the September 11 attacks were planned out there in some of 40 terrorist […]

Afghanistan

Juppe: Afghanistan a ‘Trap’; NATO stuck There Past 2014

Juan Cole

At the NATO summit in Lisbon, it is expected to be announced that although 2014 is the target date by which NATO and US troops would withdraw, in fact a NATO contingent will be in the country thereafter in some capacity. Although this prospect is said to mollify Afghan elites around Karzai who fear being […]

Afghanistan

Afvietnam

Juan Cole

Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2010: “As NATO leaders meet in Lisbon this weekend, the U.S. is expected to endorse a plan for slow withdrawal and gradually handing over security responsibility by 2014.“: “At a summit in Lisbon this weekend, Obama and other NATO leaders will endorse a plan to gradually turn combat responsibility over […]

Afghanistan

Cole in Truthdig: Kandahar the Invisible Campaign

Juan Cole

My column in Truthdig is out, on the invisible Kandahar campaign in the invisible Afghanistan War– and the Karzai/ Petraeus soap opera. Read the whole thing.

Afghanistan

Afghan Poll: We don’t Like Taliban but will Gladly Talk with Them

Juan Cole

A summer, 2010, poll done in Afghanistan by the San Francisco-based Asian Foundation, the results of which have just been released, shows: More and more Afghans, now the vast majority, say they have no sympathy with the insurgent groups fighting NATO and the Karzai government; Most people support programs to lure Taliban and other fighters […]

Afghanistan

Cole in Truthdig: “The World Is Safer Without a Republican House”

Juan Cole

My column is out at Truthdig is out, entitled “The World Is Safer Without a Republican House” Excerpt: ‘ Although Congress for the most part leaves foreign policy to the president, it can occasionally intervene pivotally in that arena, as when it shot down Woodrow Wilson’s plan to have the U.S. join the League of […]

Afghanistan

On How War with Iran might Destroy the United States

Juan Cole

David Broder is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark. So I am sure he by now regrets his piece on Saturday in the Washington Post on how Obama can get the country out of the economic doldrums. Broder […]

Afghanistan

Ballot Fraud, Mafia Rule making Afghans Pessimistic: Chayes

Juan Cole

I heard Sarah Chayes at the Michigan Theater on Thursday afternoon, speaking on Afghanistan. She is a long time expatriate in Qandahar, where she arrived late in 2001 as a reporter. She has gone on to be an entrepreneur of the Peace Corps kind, and a consultant to the ISAF forces…. …[Text removed at speaker’s […]