Word: talibans
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Pakistani forces advancing on a Taliban stronghold in the restive South Waziristan region made a surprising discovery: documents that appear to be linked to suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Among the finds: a German passport in the name of Said Bahaji, a militant associated with hijackers, and a Spanish passport for the wife of an alleged al-Qaeda member. Though the documents have not been authenticated, U.S. officials say they're proof that al-Qaeda members took refuge in the area. Visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she found it "hard to believe" that Pakistani forces...
...Clinton's undiplomatic bluntness. But they missed the point: her candor, her willingness to listen to and acknowledge criticism, had begun to undermine the prevailing Pakistani image of the U.S. as arrogant and bossy, more interested in having the Pakistani military fight its war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban than in having a true strategic partnership. The contrast was especially sharp after George W. Bush's eight years of unqualified support for the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf. "In the past, when the Americans came, they would talk to the generals and go home," said Farahnaz Ispahani, a government...
...Some top logistics officers say moving additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan is a slow process and needs to start as soon as possible if U.S. forces are to be in place for next spring's expected Taliban offensive. "Even if the President orders 40,000 troops to Afghanistan tomorrow, we can't fly everything into the theater," an officer said on condition of anonymity. "It's 45 days from the U.S. to Pakistan [by sea], and then another two weeks over land into Afghanistan." Some military officers say privately that a quick, forceful decision creates its own momentum toward success...
...While the wisdom of such lengthy study is subject to debate, not so the reality of the calendar. Time is either an ally or a foe of any commander. "You may have the watches," the Taliban like to say, "but we have the time." No one knows that as well as McChrystal. "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) - while Afghan security capacity matures - risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible," he wrote on Aug. 30. If, as some at the Pentagon expect, Obama won't decide...
...become conventional wisdom even among the U.S. and its NATO allies that stability in Afghanistan will ultimately depend on a political settlement that somehow involves most of those currently fighting under the Taliban rubric. So just as the U.S. chose to avoid the very election it had forced Karzai to accept and turned instead to brokering a backroom deal that would dilute the incumbent's authority, any political solution in Afghanistan will have be negotiated on the basis of the real distribution of power, rather than votes cast in an election staged in the heat of a civil...