Word: recentering
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...sending in 30,000 more troops only to start withdrawing them in July 2011, less than a year after they all arrive. The troops - as many as were involved in the Iraq surge, though in a much smaller war - are being sent to stun the enemy, to turn back recent Taliban advances, especially in Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgency. But why limit the force of the blow by announcing the date you will begin the withdrawal? "Why wouldn't they wait you out?" asked David Ignatius of the Washington Post...
...military, sending troops to remote opium-laden Helmand province rather than to the heart of the insurgency in Kandahar. There was the vastly improved human intelligence collection on al-Qaeda, which has resulted in Predator strikes that have killed at least a dozen top terrorist leaders in recent months, according to the military. There was Pakistan's new willingness to go after its indigenous branch of the Taliban, and the continued unwillingness to go after the Afghan Taliban, led by Mullah Omar - an organization created, and still supported, by the Pakistani intelligence services...
...choice of targets appears to have been a demonstration of the group's power because it occurred in one of the few remaining areas of Mogadishu that the Transitional Federal Government still controls. Al Shabaab fighters have advanced steadily across the country in recent months, while the TFG has been unable to expand its own control despite the backing of the United States, other western powers and neighboring powers Ethiopia and Kenya...
...During the most recent bout of political warfare, however, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his followers accused the king's chief adviser, Privy Council Chairman Prem Tinsulanonda, of masterminding the military putsch that toppled him in September 2006. They have demanded that the powers of Prem, who has denied the charge. and other "palace elites" be reduced. Anti-Thaksin forces have in turn accused Thaksin of disloyalty to the monarchy. Thaksin has denied the accusations, and to show respect for the king on his birthday, called on his supporters to cancel massive anti-government street demonstrations they had planned...
...remained in power for 10 years, and may well last another 10, in part because he's exploited Washington's election obsession. He's been cleanly voted in three times and that's helped him retain a democratic legitimacy despite his hegemonic power inside Venezuela. Valenzuela insists that the recent Honduran election doesn't whitewash the coup; but Amselem recently told the OAS he thought it would. Now, by recognizing its results, after earlier warning that he wouldn't, Obama has essentially accepted Amselem's dubious principle...