Word: afghanistans
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...China and the Muslim world. There's a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground there. But the West isn't being welcomed with open arms. "They just don't understand us," one businessman tells TIME in the capital, Ashgabat...
...warning to those who had commandeered the trucks by flying low across the scene was not taken up, Bild said in its commentary to the video. That revelation adds weight to criticism of the attack made at the time by the commander of American and international forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who had previously stressed the paramount aim of avoiding civilian casualties in Afghanistan...
...revelations come at a critical time. President Obama is due to reveal his new Afghanistan strategy in the next few days. If, as suspected, the U.S. deploys additional troops it's also likely to repeat calls for its allies to do likewise. But in Germany, where the Afghanistan mission is deeply unpopular, this incident and the alleged cover-up have raised fresh doubts about whether Germany should be there at all. Reflecting the mood, zu Guttenberg urged parliament to start "thinking the Afghanistan mission from its end," making the case for better-defined goals and an exit strategy. "There...
...uproar in parliament and in the media overshadowed a visit to Berlin by the General Secretary of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was in town to make the case for increased efforts by European allies in Afghanistan. Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a press conference with Rasmussen, criticized the handling of the affair, saying: "If we want trust, we also have to have full transparency." Rasmussen pleaded that it was of the "utmost importance that an American announcement of an increased troop number in Afghanistan is followed by additional troop contributions from other allies." But that's likely to fall...
...With headlines crying "lies" and the defense ministry badly damaged, many expect the affair to reinforce German opposition to the Afghanistan deployment, which is the most substantial deployment since the end of World War II, and is taking on the character of a fighting mission. Some see the affair as a chance for Germany's government, and the Western alliance more broadly, to have a real debate about strategic goals in the Hindu Kush. "Zu Guttenberg is likely to emerge strengthened from this", Volker Perthes, the head of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told TIME...