Word: afghanization
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...necessity--but winning didn't require turning the country into a "Jeffersonian democracy" (Obama's phrase) or a "Central Asian Valhalla" (as Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it). The implication was that President Bush had become too distracted by secondary, nation-building goals, such as ensuring that Afghan girls went to school. Obama would focus on the main task: defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban...
...Riedel warned that if the presidential election isn't seen as legitimate, it could lead to the collapse of the central Afghan government. "If the government of Afghanistan now goes into free fall - something like the South Vietnamese governments of the 1960s - then all the troops in the world really aren't going to matter," Riedel said. "If we don't have a government we can point to that has some basis of legitimacy in the country, the best generals, the best strategy, isn't going to help turn it around...
...turning point. Civilian casualties caused by Western attacks have fallen dramatically under a new edict from General Stanley McChrystal barring air strikes that risk innocent deaths (19 killed since July 1, down from 151 in the same period of 2008). That's designed to show the Afghan people that the U.S. military is a force for good in their country. But at the same time, U.S. troop deaths reached 45 in August, making it the deadliest month for American military personnel since the war began 94 months ago. That's due to U.S. forces challenging the Taliban more directly...
...country to join the 62,000 already there, knows he needs even more forces to prevail. He's expected to request them sometime before the war's eighth birthday on Oct. 7. That prospect is being viewed coolly inside the Pentagon. But President Obama - who has declared the Afghan conflict his top national-security priority - isn't expected to refuse his handpicked commander's initial request for reinforcements, probably 10,000 to 20,000 more troops. (Read "Will the U.S. Need More Troops in Afghanistan...
...President Obama inherited a disaster, a war which had been under-resourced horribly for at least six of the last seven and a half years," former CIA official Bruce Riedel, who was tapped by the White House to review Afghan policy, said last week. Even if McChrystal gets whatever forces he feels he needs, the best one can hope for is that the situation may be stabilized in 12 to 18 months. "Anyone who thinks that in 12 to 18 months we're going to be anywhere near victory is living in a fantasyland," Riedel said...