Word: afghan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...mujahedin, including the supply of Stinger antiaircraft missiles. Gates plotted with President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan and toured the mujahedin camps, befriending some of the guerrilla leaders who now live in Pakistan's tribal regions and dispatch suicide bombers to blow up American and Afghan forces. Ex - CIA officer Milt Bearden recalls crowds shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is great) in honor of Gates. Afghans who fought the Soviets still refer to him as "General Gates." (See Obama's personal touches to the Oval Office...
Lately Gates has been pressing Pakistani generals to go after the jihadis they helped create - men like Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose son now wields the deadliest force in North Waziristan, from which he launches attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. To Afghan and Pakistani audiences, Gates likes to reiterate that the U.S. made a big mistake when it abandoned the region after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. This time is different, he says. But the Pakistanis are not convinced. They still count the Taliban as a bulwark against Indian influence in Afghanistan and an ally in the civil war that...
...evil adversary. During the Reagan Administration, he sided with hard-liners who got the Soviets wrong. He failed to recognize that Mikhail Gorbachev was a true reformer. He didn't believe that Soviet power was collapsing. "He said the Soviets would never leave Afghanistan. They did. He said [former Afghan President] Najibullah would never survive the Soviet departure. He was totally wrong. Najibullah survived three or four years," recalls Mort Abramowitz, who was Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research at the time. "People make mistakes. Bob is not infallible...
Upon arriving in Kabul last spring, McChrystal flooded the Afghan countryside with counterinsurgency experts who came up with dire assessments and stated a need for more troops. Even Gates seemed blindsided by his own general. Gates had been public about avoiding a big American footprint in the Pashtun countryside. But after the McChrystal team's findings began leaking, Gates shifted course. To me, he said, "Once McChrystal said, 'This is what I need,' then I was there. And my goal was, how do we get Stan McChrystal as much of what he's asked for as quickly as possible...
...reminded of the power of the Pentagon corporation last fall when I followed Gates on his visit to the modern-day riveters of Oshkosh, Wis. We went to a factory where they were manufacturing off-road vehicles that could withstand the Afghan Taliban's powerful new IEDs. The workers were heavyset, rough-hewn men and women in unlaced boots, jeans, flannel shirts and goggles. Gates' patriotic speech moved them. One woman told me that whenever she didn't feel like doing her job tightening those screws, she reminded herself that she would be saving the life of Johnny from next...