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Campaigners from Avaaz dressed as British Prime Minister Theresa May and Australian media Mogul Rupert Murdoch pose during a photocall outside the Houses of Parliament on Campaigners from Avaaz dressed as British Prime Minister Theresa May and Australian media Mogul Rupert Murdoch pose during a photocall outside the Houses of Parliament on June 29, 2017 in London, England. Culture Secretary Karen Bradley announced that the Competitions and Markets Authority is to conduct a further six-month investigation into Murdochs proposed 11.7bn takeover of Sky.

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Soldier who lost both legs in Afghanistan can't receive hospital ... - The Independent

The long war in Afghanistan was a major issue for Barack Obama's administration, and one that the new United States president inherited in January 2017. In his second term from 2009, Obama had tried to force the Taliban and other armed opposition groups (AOGs) to the negotiating table, through deploying 30,000 additional American troops. But even this "surge", which had taken the number of western troops in the country to 140,000, proved insufficient (see "Trump's Afghan test", 16 February 2017).

In these circumstances, Obama decided on a policy of military withdrawal. Washington placed its new hope in training and equipping the Afghan National Army (ANA) to the point where a reasonable degree of security could be maintained. All but a handful of troops were to leave, including most of the 30,000 provided by coalition partners, with the UK foremost among this group. But even that did not work out, as spreading insecurity delayed the pullout schedule. By the end of 2016 there were still around 14,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, as well as many thousands of private military contractors.

Donald Trumps administration is now facing a further deterioration in the security environment. A wave of attacks in the past week alone demonstrates the scale of the challenge.

* On 22 July, in an incident unfolding over several hours, Taliban paramilitaries mounted simultaneous offensives in parts of three provinces: Ghore, Faryab, and Paktia. This confirmed the movement's ability not just to conduct one-off attacks but to overrun and hold entire districts

* On 24 July, a suicide-bomber targeted government personnel in western Kabul, killing at least thirty-five and injuring more than forty. Some of the casualties were key senior officials from the ministry of mines, a sector of the weakened Afghan economy that needs every expert it can get

* On 25-26 July, in another well-planned operation, Taliban elements made coordinated assaults on an ANA outpost in Kandahar province that killed somewhere between twenty-six and up to fifty-one soldiers, according to variable estimates by the government and a senior security official.

Two further incidents of a different kind can be added:

* On 20 July, the son of Taliban emir Mullah Haibatullah killed himself in a suicide-attack on ANA forces in Helmand province. This was the region of the heaviest fighting against the Taliban in 2006-10, when British and American forces lost hundreds of their soldiers. When the British withdrew, then prime minister David Cameron rashly called it mission accomplished. Today, much of the province is once again under Taliban influence. That the provincial capital Lashkar Gar is still in government hands is partly because of the deployment of a force of several hundred United States marines.

* On 21 July, also in Helmand, an operation by US strike-aircraft went badly wrong and killed fifteen Afghan police, including two commanders. In a period when so much was already going wrong for the Afghan government, it was another bitter blow.

In this perilous situation, a further concern for the American military is mounting evidence of armaments and munitions it has supplied to the ANA and other Afghan security forces reaching Taliban hands. Corruption is part of the reason, but so is the Taliban's ability to seize such material on the battlefield. The wide-ranging supplies include Humvee vehicles (some of which were later used in suicide-bomb attacks) and M-4 carbines, the lighter version of the older M-16 assault rifle. This has been in production since the mid-1990s and is now the standard weapon for much of the United States army and marine corps. Yet another concern is the Talibans acquisition of night-vision equipment, some of it later being used in propaganda videos.

A different approach?

These incidents suggest that the prospects for security in Afghanistan are grim, a view reflected in several interviews from March 2017 with Nato and Afghan personnel inside the country. In one, a soldier remarks: "We face a stalemate today, but we also faced one five, eight, ten, fifteen years ago, we just didnt know it. The same conclusion is also drawn by Emily Knowless report for the Remote Control Project.

The main conclusion of In Afghanistan: more is not the answer (5 July 2017) is that the stalemate may hold, providing Nato states continue to maintain support. But there is little evidence that inserting several thousand more troops, as Trump may do, will have any substantive effect. A potentially much more effective strategy would be an effort by multiple parties, including Nato states, Russia, Iran, China, Pakistan, India, and of course Afghanistan itself. The required focus would be an integrated commitment to working together, with the aim of negotiating towards de-escalation.

In turn that process will have to involve the Taliban. It will also require the Afghan leadership itself to heal the current dispute between President Ashraf Ghani and chief executive officer Abdullah Abdullah, a point the International Crisis Group argued in its own report (Afghanistan: the future of the national unity government, 10 April 2017).

But if change is going to come, Washington has a crucial role - although regional powers such as Pakistan, India and Iran are important too. This explains the air of pessimism around people who truly wish Afghanistan well. Trump shows no signs of recognising the problem. He is strongly tempted to give the US military more power to take decisions. Above all, the state department is much depleted, many of its experienced Afghan diplomats having moved to think-tanks and the private sector. This is yet one more area where Trump's White House is proving disastrous, a reality no amount of early morning tweets can disguise.

Is there any other way? Perhaps it is worth speculating just for a moment. Imagine a parallel universe in which there was a country that had been involved in the war in Afghanistan since 2001, but had a government that now sought a way forward to bring the conflict to an end. Imagine that it had an experienced, professional and well-funded diplomatic service and that it maintained good relations with most of the aforementioned countries, and at least tolerable relations with the others, even allowing for recent and past history. In that parallel universe that country might be the UK, under a government that genuinely sought an internationalist direction of travel and had a strong commitment to the United Nations.

Much of that description in no way applies to the current Theresa May government and a certain Boris Johnson at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. But a Jeremy Corbyn government with an Emily Thornberry-led FCO could be very different. Yes, it is a parallel universe, for now. But it does no harm to speculate once in a while. In the right conditions, another Afghanistan is possible.

Read more from the original source:
Afghanistan: despair...then imagine - Open Democracy

STATE DEPARTMENT

While President Donald Trump's administration is seeking a reason to keep American troops in Afghanistan after 16 years of war, U.S. officials are also examining options to stabilize conflicts in the region, including a dialogue that would move forward a peace process.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is not advocating for military options, but looking to facilitate a dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban, according to the State Department.

"I think one of the things that the secretary feels very strongly about is trying to develop get to a place where we can have some sort of a peace process. And that means actually sitting down and talking with members of the Taliban and starting to facilitate that kind of dialogue," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said earlier this week.

"Ultimately, like in many situations in many other countries, military options or our military strategy is not necessarily going to win those countries and put peace back together," Nauert told VOA. "It's part of it. But in the long run, you have to bring both sides to the table or multiple sides to the table together to determine their future."

Watch: Seeking a Way Forward in Afghanistan, Tillerson Pushes for Diplomacy

Policy under review

The Trump administration has yet to complete its policy review to stabilize Afghanistan. Officials say it will likely be weeks before a plan is finalized and announced.

When Trump was asked by a reporter on July 20 whether he would deploy additional American troops to the war-torn country, the president responded: "We'll see."

Trump's team is said to split over how to stabilize Afghanistan.

The military contingency National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford all seem to agree with their commander on the ground that a troop increase in Afghanistan should be one part of a complex solution.

"But the secretary of state is not going to advocate or is not going to work on Mr. McMaster's behalf or on General Mattis' behalf," Nauert said. "Our piece of it to work on is more from the diplomacy standpoint and humanitarian assistance."

Dangers of security over diplomacy

Some analysts warn of the danger of prioritizing security over diplomacy. They argue Washington should find a comprehensive strategy, which addresses many of the challenges Kabul is facing.

"I really think that the Trump administration could really suffer politically if it were to commit to an open-ended troop commitment in Afghanistan, which seems to be one of the directions that it is considering going," Michael Kugelman, deputy director for South Asia at the Wilson Center, told VOA.

"It has to be a strategy, it cannot be limited to a security solution," Kugelman said. "We really need to be thinking about the diplomatic strategy, and specifically, how to engage with the Afghan government, which is in a lot of trouble."

In a recent interview with VOA's Afghan Service in Kabul, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he strongly opposed a policy that sends a message to intensify the war.

Instead, Karzai said he supported a U.S. strategy that is meant to pursue peace, promote unity and foster good relations with Afghanistan's neighbors.

"A surge of troops will lead to the intensification of war in the country. I wholeheartedly and strongly oppose it. We want peace, peace and peace," Karzai told VOA.

Meanwhile, responding to a New York Times report that Afghanistan's mineral wealth may be a reason for Trump to remain engaged in the country, Nauert told VOA on Thursday that she had seen the report, but with the Afghanistan policy review still under way, she would not get ahead of the final decisions made by the president.

"They will come to conclusion about that," she said.

Read the original post:
Seeking a Way Forward in Afghanistan, Tillerson Pushes for ... - Voice of America

Brand MHR Madeleine King has returned from a nine-day trip to the Middle East, where she had a chance to see the Australian Defence Forces role in forging peace in Afghanistan.

Travelling with Defence personnel being deployed and five other Federal politicians, Ms King got a whirlwind tour of what life is like for Australians posted in the previously war-torn country.

This included first-aid training, weapon handling and familiarisation with protected mobility vehicles.

Australia are involved in Operation Highroad, with Defence personnel helping to train, advise and assist the Afghan forces as the country looks towards a peaceful future.

In conjunction with the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support, about 300 Australians are based in the Islamic country.

Ms King said the trip had opened her eyes to the good work the Defence Force conducted in Afghanistan and that it would play a role in helping her as part of several Parliamentary groups in Canberra.

I am grateful for the opportunity and I am glad that I have done it, she said.

It is a fair bit of time out of the electorate but it was a valuable experience.

My take out of it is the enthusiasm our people there had for the task at hand. That commitment to the task makes you really proud.

People should be reassured of the vast good that we are doing there.

Ms King said Afghanistan was thoroughly benefiting from the guidance of Australia.

I think a lot of people are not aware of what is going on there and are oblivious to the very good work that Australians are doing in Afghanistan, she said.

Driving through Kabul, you see someone selling balloons on a street that people used to be hung.

That is what the city was it was one of the more dreadful places in the world for humans to be in that it has been able to progress to todays freedoms is heartwarming.

Ms King said the HMAS Arunta, which returned to Garden Island in Rockingham on Sunday after nine months at sea, was frequently mentioned and it drove home the sacrifices the Defence community make.

More here:
MP's Afghanistan visit opens eyes to good work of Defence - The West Australian

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Before he entered the White House, President Trump looked at the American war effort in Iraq and came away with a simple solution: Take the oil.

Thankfully, this campaign-trail suggestion has not carried over to his presidency. But it was an early warning sign of Trump's own capacity for grand strategy. He sees everything, including international relations, as a transaction, a quid pro quo arrangement where even the complex legacy of a U.S. invasion in the Middle Eastcan be reduced to a bad deal and an argument to plunder another nation's wealth.

Now, it seems, he mayhold a similar view when it comes to Afghanistan, where American troops have been stationed for more than 15 years.

Recent reportshave underscored the brewing fight within the White House over the future of its Afghan policy. Someadministration officials most notably national security adviser H.R. McMaster are urging a mini-surge of U.S. troops to help Afghan forces fight the Taliban and affiliates of the Islamic State. But Trump appears unwilling to commit further American blood and treasure to a faraway conflict although he has no qualms dropping some especially large bombs and is loath to repeat the policies of his predecessors. I want to find out why we've been there for 17 years, he told reporters last week.

According to the New York Times, however, something has caught Trump's eye: access to a rumored $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Evenwhile White House officials spar over the nature of their war strategy, they are exploring the possibility of sending an envoy to Kabul to meet with mining officials. Trump is reportedly eager to not let China eat the United States'lunch when it comes to securing Afghanistan's potentially lucrative deposits.

But many analysts are skeptical. A $3 billion Chinese project to develop a copper mine outside Kabul has been stalled for close to a decade. The country's lack of basicinfrastructure, endemic graft and perennial security concerns would undermine any serious venture.

It would be dangerous to use the potential for resource exploitation as a selling point for military engagement, Laurel Miller, who until last month was the State Departments special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saidto the Times. The barriers to entry are really quite considerable, and that kind of argument could fuel suspicion about Americas real intentions in Afghanistan.

The discussion about miningcoincides witha change of heart fromAfghan President Ashraf Ghani, who during the Obama administration resisted the rapid development of the mining industry, largely because he worried about the threat of widespread corruption that would come with it, the Times reported. But as soon as Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Ghani reversed his position, contacting the Trump team and promoting Afghanistans mineral wealth. He realized that Mr. Trump would be intrigued by the commercial possibilities, officials said.

On a certain level, Trump can't be blamed for being fatigued by Afghanistan.Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both struggled with the challenge of occupying and rebuilding the war-ravaged nation. Obama's slow withdrawal from the country was criticized by senior U.S. military officials including McMaster, a three-star Army general for handing the initiative to the Taliban.

In a bid to conjure up a new strategy, the White House has even contemplated outsourcing the war to private contractors. These discussions, apparently encouraged by White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, underlay an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal written by Erik Prince, the controversial founder of private military company Blackwater. Prince essentially called for an American viceroy to run Afghanistan with the aid of battalions of mercenaries.Prince likened the enterprise to that of the East India Company a chilling analogy given the company's history of plunder, corruption and violence in colonial South Asia.

Imperial delusions aside, few American officials can say what victory looks like, even after so many years invested in the country. The goal now seems more akin to 'not losing,' " my colleague Max Bearak wrote, before offering a grim summary of the state of affairs:

A resurgent Taliban now controls 40 percent of the country's districts. A fledgling Islamic State affiliate isproving hard to eliminatein the mountainous east. The popularity of the American mission here has eroded into cynicism as the war grinds on. Afghan civilians and security forces are dying in record numbers andmore than 600civilians were killed by NATO or government-aligned forces last year.Casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed, according to U.S. government watchdog SIGAR.

In interviews, Bearak asked prominent officialsin Afghanistan what would happen if the United Statesheeded Trump's America First"message and simply leftthe country. A U.S. military spokesman said it would leave a void that would be exploited by a constellation of insurgent groups. Some Afghans indicated that the U.S. troop presence was itself a spur for violence. Others warned that the country's weakgovernment, beset by scandal and infighting, would collapse without international support and protection.

I dont think there is any serious analyst of the situation in Afghanistan who believes that the war is winnable, said Miller, the former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan,to Politico's Susan Glasser.Its possible to prevent the defeat of the Afghan government and prevent military victory by the Taliban, but this is not a war thats going to be won, certainly not in any time horizon thats relevant to political decision-making in Washington.

And so despite Trump's desire for a win, youprobably will hearmore of the same from Washington.The basic parameters of the emerging new plan building up Afghan security forces, enlisting Pakistans support to eliminate Taliban sanctuaries, coaxing the Taliban to the negotiating table reflect the same elusive goals in place for the last sixteen years, wrote Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. The Trump administrations open-ended commitment to Afghanistan effectively buys America more time to keep making the same mistakes. The strategy risks being little more than old wine in a new bottle.

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Originally posted here:
Trump's crude view of Afghanistan won't solve US's longest-running war - Washington Post