Word: afghanistans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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While he will continue to govern his tumultuous nation, it is entirely unclear that Hamid Karzai is capable of presiding over a stable Afghanistan. As America determines its policy in the region moving forward, it should not be any more confident in Afghanistan’s leader than in its electoral process and should avoid depending on the country’s shaky government for support...
There's no question that President Barack Obama is taking his time in deciding whether to send the 40,000 extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan that his commander has requested. The debate in Washington is over whether that delay constitutes dangerous "dithering" in the face of a growing danger or prudent pause in the face of a looming quagmire...
...President in March announced a "comprehensive new strategy" for waging war in Afghanistan and promptly dispatched a fresh general to implement it in June. But having received General Stanley McChrystal's grim assessment of the situation on the ground and his request for reinforcements, Obama has spent the past two months - as U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have reached historic highs - weighing the wisdom of both decisions. In Washington, backers of McChrystal and his manpower-intensive counterinsurgency strategy say delaying the dispatch of reinforcements endangers the mission, but those who are more skeptical of the military's ability to turn...
...must act now to reverse the negative trends and demonstrate progress" and made clear that "time matters." Yet there are now hints that Obama may not make a decision on troops until late November, two months after McChrystal submitted his request. (Read "Is Escalation Obama's Only Choice in Afghanistan...
...Some top logistics officers say moving additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan is a slow process and needs to start as soon as possible if U.S. forces are to be in place for next spring's expected Taliban offensive. "Even if the President orders 40,000 troops to Afghanistan tomorrow, we can't fly everything into the theater," an officer said on condition of anonymity. "It's 45 days from the U.S. to Pakistan [by sea], and then another two weeks over land into Afghanistan." Some military officers say privately that a quick, forceful decision creates its own momentum toward success...