Word: british
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Uncertainty is one of the most corrosive elements in politics, and as days melt into weeks with no firm decision from President Barack Obama on whether the U.S. will increase troop levels in Afghanistan, the remaining British consensus on the issue is threatening to dissolve. Public support for Britain's contribution to the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan has curdled as the body count of British troops has spiraled, reaching 98 this year alone. An opinion poll taken earlier this month after an Afghan policeman shot dead five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand province revealed that three-quarters...
...conference involving NATO and the Afghan government in January to set out an Afghan exit strategy. The conference "should identify a process for transferring district by district to full Afghan control and - if at all possible - set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010," he said. (See pictures of British soldiers in Afghanistan...
...speech did little to revitalize flagging public support. The British public is skeptical about the central tenet of Brown's policy that engagement in the region prevents terrorism on British streets. According to a survey taken Nov. 13-16 by politicshome.com, a news website, 44% of Westminster insiders agreed that the West's involvement in Afghanistan had helped combat global terrorism, but only 21% of respondents outside the Westminster bubble shared this view...
...blows over the treatment of troops and future defense investment plans. The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg suggested in an article this summer that troops' "lives are being thrown away because our politicians won't get their act together," while two smaller parties, the Greens and the far-right British National Party, are demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troops. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
...Military commanders are aware of the challenges confronting members of the NATO mission which could include 500 additional British troops standing ready for deployment as early as the end of November, provided the Karzai government gives convincing assurances of its intention to tackle corruption - and assuming Washington finally arrives at a decision. On Nov. 16, Major-General Paul Newton, the Assistant Chief of Defense Staff, announced a new British counter-insurgency doctrine - the military's first in eight years -and said it needed to be swiftly implemented. "Does this sound to you like a briefing of the sort that...