Word: nato
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Some 38,000 Afghan soldiers have been trained by U.S. and coalition forces since 2003, and many already accompany NATO troops on the ground. The U.S. and the international community have launched an ambitious plan to nearly double the size of the Afghan National Army (ANA), to 70,000; to build a fully functioning police force of 82,000; and to lay the groundwork for a National Afghan Air Corps by December 2008. But building a strong army in the middle of a war is a difficult undertaking. Much of the Afghan corps is young, illiterate and prone to desertion...
...hopes to salvage some success for its increasingly parlous enterprise in Afghanistan, that will have to change. At a time when U.S. and NATO forces have come under scathing criticism for civilian casualties--figures compiled by media groups and human-rights organizations indicate that since the beginning of the year, the number of civilians killed by Western forces is on a par with those killed by militants-- putting an Afghan face on the war has become an essential part of regaining the faith of the public. "All this anger about civilian casualties by foreign forces--it's just like Baghdad...
...changed over the last several years, as a new generation of conservative politicians has pushed Japan to take a more active role abroad, including providing support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Also, the Japanese navy currently engages in refueling missions in the Indian Ocean to back up NATO-led antiterror operations in Afghanistan, while the air force ferries supplies and personnel from Kuwait to Baghdad and northern Iraq. That may not sound like much, but such operations would have been unthinkable to pacifist Japan as recently as a decade...
...Earlier that day I'd visited NATO headquarters to talk to an American Marine colonel who tracks suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices. He came straight to the point: neither military force nor intelligence is going to stop suicide bombings. Only "mitigate" them. What NATO is pressing the Afghans to do is to deindocrinate young men like Farhad. But how do you get someone like Farhad, who may never have seen a map, change his radical worldview...
...Does Congress pass legislation to instruct the President on the details of a withdrawal? Do they dictate terms on how to involve NATO or other allies? Or even on how to negotiate with Iran and Syria over the withdrawal? And what if something happens to U.S. troops during the pullout or Iraq rapidly plunges into a bloody civil war as U.S. troops are leaving? Who is to blame? Bush? Congress...