Word: effort
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...something on the Internet about bin Laden and that happened to appeal to their psychology." Once everything is terrorism, he warned, then nothing is. But while the motivations of the Virginia Tech gunman seemed perversely personal, Hasan had spent years telling anyone who would listen that the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan was immoral...
...After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I decided to make an intense effort to get to know the U.S. military. My education was turbocharged by General David Petraeus, who invited me to spend some time learning counterinsurgency at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., while he was leading the team that wrote the new doctrine. The intellectual rigor of Petraeus' team, their willingness - no, their joy - when it came to chewing over even the most unlikely questions were flat-out exciting. It was certainly at odds with the hidebound image of the military I'd grown up with. I became an auxiliary member...
...training companies with Afghan battalions. No such joint units currently exist. The press has been led to a model town in Helmand, where counterinsurgency seems to be working - but it's an all-American operation. There are no Afghans to take over when we leave, which means the effort is a mirage. And the idea that illiterate and tribal Afghans can be trained into soldiers and police officers remains more a hope than a fact. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' offensive in Afghanistan...
...reasonable strategy would be to focus on the next year and see if there's any progress. Can the Afghan troops be trained? Will the Karzai government buckrake, or cooperate? Who are the Taliban, anyway? I'd send more trainers, and more troops to Kandahar, immediately, to give the effort its best chance to succeed. But the President should be as rigorous in evaluating the progress of counterinsurgency as the military was in formulating...
...Although it accepted defeat in its effort to win control of the government at the ballot box, Hizballah has since maneuvered behind the scenes to rig the composition of the Cabinet in its favor. First it demanded veto power over all decisions, but eventually it accepted a compromise formula that left the ruling coalition without a large enough majority to make big decisions on its own. Still not content with that, the opposition pushed for control of Lebanon's telecommunications system, which would give Hizballah added operational security from Israeli intelligence - but could also help it hamper the activities...