Word: talibanic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...sent last March, whose presence didn't seem to improve the situation on the ground at all. "Look, the fact that there were increased casualties this year I think is to be expected from increased engagement by our forces." True enough, but the NATO coalition lost ground to the Taliban this year, by Obama's own admission. And the President could only come up with speed of deployment and a clearer sense of mission as strategic game changers. Later, when I asked him about what changes he had ordered for the training of the Afghan army and police - a frustrating...
...just posturing? Doesn't Karzai know that without American protection, he could be swinging from a lamppost in Kabul like several of his predecessors?) And as for the argument, made passionately by some in the military, that a specific date for starting the withdrawal is an invitation for the Taliban to lie low until we leave: "They simply won't do that," says Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you stand down, you allow the enemy - even this inept Afghan government - to create a bow-wave effect, to create the impression of authority...
...Pakistani military officials say limited resources force them to prioritize going after the Pakistani Taliban, while leaving militant groups focused on Afghanistan largely unmolested. But observers say that, in fact, the Pakistani military views the Afghan Taliban leadership and groups such as Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami and the Haqqanis as a means of securing its interests in Afghanistan. "It's leverage in the sense that it allows them to have a government in Kabul that is neutral, if not pro-Pakistan," says Nawaz. "That's why they've always hedged on the Afghan Taliban...
...Relations between Pakistan and the Obama Administration could be sharply strained if Washington decides to expand its covert air strikes on Pakistani soil. In recent years, Pakistani officials have publicly protested but privately acquiesced when CIA-operated drone strikes have targeted al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the mountainous tribal areas - a program that has eliminated more than a dozen senior al-Qaeda operatives and even Baitullah Mehsud, the founding leader of the Pakistani Taliban. But the perceived violation of sovereignty has also enraged the Pakistani public. If the U.S. decides to expand the target range of such strikes beyond...