Apologies to all for the late dive in, but I'd like to pick it up from this deceptively simple and much underestimated fact pointed out by Alistair Millar: "No matter how much the US spends militarily or otherwise, America cannot be everywhere at once". Thus, one priority for the new president, as far as I can see from the other side, will be to acknowledge the major mistakes of the Bush admin's approach to the "war on terror", starting perhaps with this very title. Two major issues will have to be examined without delay: First, how to retrieve some of the moral high-ground that America has lost miserably and UNNECESSARILY, and second, how to devise a smarter strategy through which we can (seriously this time) isolate terrorists from the rest of a given society and contain wannabees.
Has the responsibility for counter-terrorism fallen mainly under the purview of the military? It has been argued that this perception has been created in part because key positions are held by current and former military officials fill many counterterrorism-related positions in the US Government, for example, Gen. Michael V. Hayden (CIA); retired Navy Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell (director of national intelligence) and Dell L. Dailey, an Army lieutenant general (State Department CT Coordinator). The official use of the term "Global War on Terrorism" also tends to overemphasize the military's role.
For a detailed snap shot of what Afghans really think take a look at the third yearly survey of Afghan opinion by BBC News and ABC News. If you don't trust polling data no need to read it.
I am off to catch a plane to Addis Ababa then going to Rwanda, Liberia, Senegal -- and Mexico City for next week's big HIV/AIDS conference. I'll be following President Clinton and his entourage as they visit his Foundation's project sites, and will be posting updates to UN Dispatch and Twitter. Efforts to combat HIV/AIDS (particularly mother to child transmission) and Malaria will be the focus of our many stops...and we will even catch up with the Secretary General in Mexico. Check back for updates throughout the week. I'll take lots of pictures and post them here.
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>>Turkey - In the worst case of terrorist violence in Turkey in over five years, two bombs exploded in a pedestrian area in Istanbul on Sunday, killing 16 and injuring over 150. Initial speculation suggested that it was the work of the P.K.K. Turkish jets had attacked 12 Kurdish targets in Iraq earlier on Sunday.>>Iraq - In one of the deadliest coordinated attacks in Iraq this year, four female suicide bombers in Baghdad and Kirkuk killed at least 48 people and wounded 249 on Monday. The Kirkuk attacks were targeted at Kurdish demonstrators at the provincial headquarters, protesting a controversial local elections law. Local Kurds immediately suspected ethnic Turkmen and responded with violence. The Baghdad attacks targeted Shiite pilgrims.>>India - Sixteen bombs exploded in Ahmedabad on Saturday killing over 45 people, a day after eight bombs were detonated in Bangalore. Both areas are ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and are growing at a quick clip. A little-known group, the Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility in an email to a TV station.In this edition of UN Plaza, I speak with Kristele Younes of Refugees International about the Afghan refugee crisis.
With all due respect (and I sincerely mean this, not meant just as the requisite boiler-plate), I find Peter a tad too cock-sure in how he portrays more boots on the grounds as a total no-brainer ("well, do the math"). I understand the importance of boots on the ground for stability operations, indeed in the pages of my blog urged for supplementing our forces in Iraq back in the day, before the decision was belatedly made on the surge (once finally implemented after the myriad criminal ineptitudes of the Rumsfeld era, I disagreed with the wisdom incidentally, as it was not accompanied by a serious regional diplomatic strategy, so that we were merely forging tactical, localized security improvements but missing the wider strategic lens the situation demanded, and indeed still does today).
The question about more boots on the ground is a relatively easy one to answer.
None, or few, of those new boots will come from NATO allies and if they do come they will come so freighted with national caveats and domestic political considerations that will make them largely ineffective. So they will have to come from the U.S.
Why are more needed? Well do the math: Afghanistan is a country ideally suited to guerilla warfare with its high mountain ranges and it is a third larger than Iraq and its population is some 6 million or so greater, yet the numbers of soldiers and policemen in Iraq are more than three times larger than in Afghanistan.
I agree with almost everything Peter writes below (particularly his "second" mistake, the clever subtlety he flags in his "third mistake", and then too his last paragraph-to which I'd add the need to effectively engage with Syria too).
A small quibble however.