Michael's Dispatches
09 March 2009
President Obama talks straight on Afghanistan. We are not winning. This bit of truth has been reported clearly on this website since early 2006. In fact, not only are we not winning, we are losing. Pakistan is a far bigger and more important problem than Afghanistan. On the global scale, Afghanistan is tantamount irrelevant so long as we can deny sanctuary to people who will use that land as a base to attack us.
06 March 2009
This is a sad story. During the morning workout of reading reports from the front, I found that one of our latest losses in Afghanistan was also a casualty of Abu Ghraib. The ghosts of prisoner abuse haunt everyone.
06 March 2009
While I work on dispatches regarding torture, it appears that some people are getting what they want; many have asked for proof that torture occurred, and that torture be defined. These questions are fair and important. Yet it seems that these questions often are asked with an air of smugness that the questions cannot or will not be answered. The issue is sharply politicized and so truth will hide under the nearest rock. My views on torture, partially shaped by battlefield experience, are apolitical. They are merely pragmatic based on life experience.
05 March 2009
The mainstream media has finally fully caught up to where we were in 2006. It is now commonly recognized that we have massive problems with AfPak, and that Pakistan is the real problem.
05 March 2009
The President of Sudan is behaving like a little Saddam Hussein, who behaved like a little Stalin. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and so his government responded immediately by holding its own people hostage from aid workers. It's important to recall that Sudan was a base for al Qaeda long before 9/11, with complicity of the Sudanese government who is believed to have aided in terrorist attacks.
Read more: President Protests Criminal Charges by Committing More Crimes
04 March 2009
It's an excellent day to see the United States reaching out to Great Britain. Nobody stood stronger with us during the bad days of Iraq than Great Britain. They are deeply in the fight in Afghanistan.
PART I
Anytime I deliver bad news, such as back in 2006 that we were losing the war in Afghanistan while nearly everyone “knew” we were winning, there resulted an avalanche of criticism and insults, along with a decline in readership and support. But that’s the way it goes. If a writer wants to make money, he should avoid truth and tell people what they want to hear. Yet to win the war, tell the truth.
03 March 2009
Slowly but clearly, the Afghan population is turning against us. The Canadians are seen here struggling with the realization. Secretary Gates told me in December that his most serious concern is that we will lose the support of the Afghan people. He's a very smart and experienced man. I concur with his concerns.
02 March 2009
This Washington Post story rings true with my experience from October 2008. I was in Afghanistan, and embeds with U.S. soldiers in that particular area were hard to come by, so I endeavored to hear the other side of the story, which was much easier to accomplish. It’s amazing that it’s easier to interview potential enemies than to embed with U.S. forces. Anyway, I went to the area near the village of Sper Kundy, just near Sarobi, where 10 French soldiers had recently died, and interviewed two men from the village. Interestingly, I am told, that after I went there, a journalist tried to do the same thing and got kidnapped. Apparently he was released without harm. I was told that the journalist had used the same interpreter, though I have no verification of this. In any case, the interpreter disappeared.
02 March 2009
A deadly wave of released prisoners is likely to intrude into our future. I was in northern Iraq when this attack occurred, but was far away and only heard through sources that the attacker had been released from Guantanamo. It's clear that some of these prisoners should be held for life, but which ones?
Please read.
02 March 2009
Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid is a trusted source on AfPak. His opinions have proven amazingly prescient. His book "Taliban" was published six months before the 9/11 attacks, and provided a stark warning. I interviewed Mr. Rashid in 2006 after I returned from Afghanistan.
Pakistan is slipping the noose around its own neck. Giving up Swat to the Taliban would be like us giving up Georgia to the Ku Klux Klan.
24 February 2009
President Barack Obama has spoken. His words beamed around the world. I am in Asia preparing for a long year in Afghanistan and other contended places, but stopped to listen closely to President Obama's words. Most of the things that President Obama talked about will take years, or many years, to implement. But one thing can happen NOW. No more torture.
24 February 2009
We may have a lot of problems at home -- and we do -- but our brothers and sisters are out there for us tonight. We lost eight just today. Four soldiers were killed in Iraq, and four in Afghanistan.
Want to see a time when the press and the President really clashed with the media? When was it? World War I? World War II? Korea? Vietnam? Iraq I? Iraq II? (Definitely not Afghanistan, where the press practically handed out free candy and foot massages for over five years.)
23 February 2009
This is the best news I've seen all year. Green Berets operating vibrantly in the belly of the beast:
Read more: U.S. Unit Secretly in Pakistan Lends Ally Support
23 February 2009
Iraq continues to progress, but still some fighting. Yet these days, al Qaeda in Iraq is like a piranha fish with no scales; it's still alive and flopping around on shore, but the dwindling piranha school cannot be happy. The villagers have been helping to net them up and scale them.
22 February 2009
A more accurate title might be: NATO 'alive and kicking like a man being mauled by a tiger.' (Because he forgot to bring a rifle to a tiger hunt.)
22 February 2009
U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan. Their progress will be closely watched by friends and enemies alike:
Mini-surge to test out US strategy in Afghanistan
Some 3,000 US troops recently deployed to insurgent-heavy provinces near Kabul.
21 February 2009
This could be a major victory for our enemies:
More Articles...
- Interesting Afghan Statistics
- The India I remember
- Lithuanian Forces and Piotr Stanczak
- How Much is Afghanistan Really Worth to Us?
- Planning Victory in Afghanistan
- Hamas Stealing Food Aid From Its Own People?
- It’s Raining
- Afghanistan: A Dream That Will Not Come True
- How Can the World Be Blind to Israel’s Existential Threats?
- Jerusalem
- Tom Ricks discusses CSM Jeff Mellinger
- Attack on U.S. Forces in Kabul
- McCaffrey on Mexico
- Michael Moore Lawsuit Update
- Education and Challenges in Afghanistan
- Michael Moore Lawsuit
- Red Flag
- Godspeed to Paula Loyd
- Border Bullies
- Interview by Ed Morrissey: Command Sergeant Major Jeff Mellinger.
- Letter to Commander of Lithuanian Special Forces
- Afghan Bravery
- National Review Interview
- The Clinic
- Dumb Signs
- Sniff Test
- Afghanistan: The War Grows
- DOD - Counterthreat Finance Policy
- Irregular Warfare - JOC
- Agreement For Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq
- The Art of the End of War
- Down with Barriers, Up with Iraq
- Happy Thanksgiving
- Happy Ending
- In Time of War
- A Moment of Opportunity for the New Media
- Bloody Border, Messy Politics
- Advertisement and the Virtue of Audacity
- Are You Connected?
- Brother, Can You Spare an Afghani?
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