Word: missions
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Much of the brouhaha could have been avoided if 1) there were other news last week, and 2) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan had been a bit more artful in his presentation of the speech's mission. "My concern is the clumsy way in which the Department of Education marketed this and the clumsy and unimpressive instructional materials that they provided," says Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank...
...This is why the House Democrats who have been calling on Obama to lay out a clear, fixed legislative plan on Wednesday night are likely to be disappointed. Obama's mission, when he takes the podium in the House, flanked by his Vice President and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be less about forcing the hand of Congress than re-energizing public support for reform, something that is essential for members of Congress to feel they have the cover to vote...
...leader welcomed President Obama's election. "Hopefully it signals the return to a model of cooperation that we consider very important," says Westerwelle. But Washington shouldn't expect too much love. Westerwelle is determined to avoid mission creep in Afghanistan. All but a handful of the 4,500 German troops are deployed in the north of the country, away from the fiercest fighting in the south. "We shouldn't risk our successful operations in the north by taking on duties in other areas," he says...
...fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Kunduz province and the region around it had stayed relatively quiet. A German Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) based just outside the eponymous provincial capital coordinated development efforts, building roads and bridges to upgrade infrastructure shattered by the war. The nature of their mission was reflected in rules of engagement: German troops were prohibited from shooting first. (See pictures from a battle in Afghanistan's Kunar province...
Lieut. Col. Carsten Spiering, spokesman for Germany's Kunduz PRT, counters that avoiding harm to civilians is a mission priority, even if it means letting the Taliban slip away from time to time. "We take extra care and would rather save the fight for another day than risk killing one innocent person," he says. "That's not how we operate here." (Another German officer, who asked not to be named, insisted the damage done by past U.S. airstrikes has made "everyone's job more difficult...