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White House Mulls Grim Picture of 'Deteriorating Stalemate' in Afghanistan
By David Wood - Politics DailyThe assessments now pouring into the White House from Afghanistan run the gamut from discouraging to awful, as the Obama administration finishes up its long-awaited December review of the war strategy the president announced a year ago. In many ways, the cold facts charting the grim course of the war belie the upbeat views that the perpetually confident Gen. David Petraeus, the war's top commander, has expressed in public. President Obama didn't get much of a first-hand look at the war during his brief stopover at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan Friday. He briefly conferred with his top ...
Denis McDonough, Obama's New Deputy National Security Adviser: 5 Key Facts
By David Knowles - AOL News(Oct. 22) -- President Barack Obama announced today that he has appointed Denis McDonough as the next deputy national security adviser. McDonough will report to Tom Donilon, who takes over from outgoing the national security adviser, retired Gen. James Jones. Surge Desk has compiled the following facts about McDonough, whom Obama praised as possessing "an extraordinary work ethic." 1. He's a longtime Obama adviser Formerly a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Tom Daschle --as well as a legislative director for Sen. Ken Salazar -- McDonough first began working for Obama when the president was ...
As Afghan War Lengthens, Fresh Troops Deploy
By David Wood - Politics DailyFORT POLK, Louisiana -- In the dwindling days before it deploys to combat in Afghanistan, these things are occupying the minds of 2-30 Infantry: the beer-can grip, the care and feeding of mules, and the eye shield. Since the men of the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment got home from Iraq 19 months ago to steamy Fort Polk, it's been a constant push of training, including a month of mock combat in the bitter February cold of Wyoming to prepare them for the Afghan winter. They've done battle drills day and night, in small groups and large; sharpened their skills at compass navigation through ...
Last US Combat Brigade Leaves Iraq: Instant Reactions
By Carl Franzen - AOL News(Aug. 18) -- They're coming home -- early. On Wednesday evening in America, the Web lit up with the news that the final designated combat brigade, made up of some 4,000 U.S. soldiers, was leaving Iraq two weeks ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline set by President Obama. The historic moment, as MSNBC noted, effectively "... [Brings] to a close the active combat phase of a 7˝-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead." Of course, as the ...
Robert Gates to Retire in 2011: Three Dilemmas He Leaves Behind
By Katie Drummond - AOL News(Aug. 16) -- Robert Gates, the U.S. defense secretary since 2006 and a key player in shaping the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hopes to retire from his post sometime in 2011. That's the most immediately attention-grabbing detail revealed over at Foreign Policy, in a profile that recounts Gates' unlikely decision to stay on following the end of President George W. Bush's tenure in the White House. "I really didn't want to be asked," he told Foreign Policy. "[But] if I were asked, I would say, 'Yes.' In the middle of two wars, kids out there getting hurt and dying, there was no way that I was ...
President Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Speech: 'Mission Accomplished 2'?
By Carl Franzen - AOL News(Aug. 2) -- Talk about a tough crowd. Hours before President Barack Obama was set to give a speech proudly announcing the withdrawal of "all combat troops in Iraq" by the end of August, commentators around the Web had already thoroughly chastised him for his pre-released remarks. Though the text of the president's speech steered notably clear of the "mission accomplished" lingo of his predecessor -- emphasizing that the American "commitment in Iraq is changing," not ending, with some 50,000 troops expected to remain on the ground come September, down from a high of 177,000 in January, ...
At Loggerheads: Karzai and the White House
By James Graff - AOL News(April 6) -- White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today pointedly avoided calling Hamid Karzai an ally of the United States and suggested that his invitation to Washington on May 12 will depend on "whatever continued or further remarks President Karzai makes." That warning is the latest evidence of a deepening rift between the Obama administration and the Afghan president over his wavering allegiance to U.S. efforts to push back the Taliban and support his government with up to 100,000 troops. It came as one of Karzai's most vociferous critics, U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, the former ...
In Afghanistan, Trust Is Hard to Come By
By David Wood - Politics DailyArmy Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Spino, a combat medic, was helping unload supplies at a remote base in Afghanistan last week when a dispute broke out between Afghan and western soldiers. At an increasing number of bases, Afghan and U.S. and other western troops are living together, an arrangement intended to accelerate the training and advising of Afghan security forces. Last week's confrontation erupted when an Afghan soldier was refused access to a landing apron where a helicopter was about to descend. Angry shouts were exchanged, and then the Afghan soldier raised his rifle and shot, wounding two ...
The Afghanistan Surge: A Logistical Challenge with a Cast of Thousands
By David Wood - Politics DailyTroops are jamming two dozen at a time into eight-man Arctic tents hastily erected beside the runways at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, as the first of the 30,000-plus reinforcements ordered by President Obama arrive for the expanding war. It's simple enough for the commander in chief to order the additional troops into the fight at "the fastest possible pace,'' as Obama did in his West Point speech Dec. 1. Getting it done, safely and on time, will be barely short of miraculous, given the risks and vulnerabilities involved. Heavy-lift cargo planes jammed with troops or armored vehicles ...
Cheney's Pre-Speech Criticism of Obama on Afghanistan Went Too Far
By Matt Lewis - Politics DailySince leaving office a little more than 10 months ago, former Vice President Dick Cheney has become the most outspoken critic of President Obama's foreign policy decisions. Most of the time, this has been a good thing, as Cheney has often very eloquently made the conservative case for forcefully fighting terrorism. Recently, though, he went too far. On the eve of President Obama's speech at West Point regarding the troop buildup in Afghanistan, Cheney gave a 90-minute interview to Politico where, according to the news outlet, he "slammed President Barack Obama for projecting 'weakness' to ...
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