I am overwhelmed with gratitude when I hear about the miracles that are going on in Haiti. I want to share one of those with you.
Just this morning, the U.S. State Department shared an interview with Air Force Colonel Buck Elton, the Commander of the Joint Special Operations in Haiti. He's handling airport operations at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince.
More...
January 25, 2010
January 8, 2010
Re-Discovering U.S. Leadership: An Unlikely Contender
Fifteen years ago, a conference in Cairo -- the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) -- established a groundbreaking commitment from the international community to provide universal reproductive health. The U.S. answered the call to action, and the U.S. State Department became a global leader in working toward ensuring that women had access to lifesaving reproductive health services. Fifteen years after the conference in Cairo, it is apparent how much is left to do to meet the reproductive health needs of women around the world, especially refugee and displaced women.
70 million people are currently displaced from their homes. The daily realities for women around the world can be cruel, but for refugee women, it is especially brutal. Rape and sexual exploitation escalate during conflict, increasing women's risk of HIV infection and unintended pregnancies. The challenges of accessing basic health care are overwhelming and pregnancy and childbirth become a death-defying feat. Of the 10 countries with the worst maternal mortality rates, eight are conflict-affected.
More...
70 million people are currently displaced from their homes. The daily realities for women around the world can be cruel, but for refugee women, it is especially brutal. Rape and sexual exploitation escalate during conflict, increasing women's risk of HIV infection and unintended pregnancies. The challenges of accessing basic health care are overwhelming and pregnancy and childbirth become a death-defying feat. Of the 10 countries with the worst maternal mortality rates, eight are conflict-affected.
More...
December 30, 2009
Water Power
Think of this: history's winners and losers have been determined by how well they handle their water.
In "Water," Steven Solomon traces the major turning points in world history to water innovation. People living in flooded river valleys had more food and learned how to store it. This led to food security and then prosperity through trade. Further mastery of water by way of new technologies, from barge and sailboat to mill and steam-engine, led to more prosperity and more trade, to the sanitary revolution of the 19th century and to the desalinization plants of today.
The book courses through water battles from Marc Antony and Octavian at the Battle of Actium to Nelson and Napoleon at Trafalgar; from water allocations devised by King Solomon to those advocated by ex-IMF head Michel Camdessus; from ancient water scientists such as Aristotle and Archimedes to early industrial-agers James Watt and Eli Whitney; and through environmentally oblivious leaders from Genghis Khan, who didn't understand water management, to George Bush, who in 2006 directed the dropping of 400 cases of illegal industrial discharges into wetlands his predecessors had protected under the Clean Water Act.
In covering personalities and events, Solomon suggests that societies that know how to take advantage of new ways of using water dominate their time, while those that fail to address water crises disintegrate. He cites with approval drip irrigation methods in Israel combined with shutting-down water subsidies, and as a counter-example, Saudi Arabian golf-course putting greens profligately maintained by tapping ancient, and rapidly declining, desert deep aquifers. He also suggests the dangers of concentrating water projects, noting for example, that the most gigantic water projects make inviting military and terrorist targets. For example, a bombing of Egypt's Aswan Dam could potentially create a tsunami of an order of magnitude greater than what took place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. According to Solomon, fear of what might happen in the course of a war to the High Dam was a factor in convincing Anwar Sadat to make peace with Israel.
Identifying water scarcity as the next inconvenient truth, Solomon makes arguments about water that are familiar from discussions about global warming and energy use. Water is precious and should be conserved, but conservation requires unpopular political decisions. There is always the hope of new technologies, like reverse osmotic devices for desalinization, but as with solar energy for power, these remain too costly to be widely practical, absent massive government subsidies.
Solomon suggests that the world should ultimately recognize access to clean, safe, fresh water as a basic human right, noting that its absence tends to produce famines, genocides, wars, disease, mass migrations, and ecological disasters. In the past, social and political tools to respond were often grossly inadequate to meet these demands. Today, the issue is not so much technological gaps, as a failure of will. Amsterdam and Venice provide contrasts in how to manage a watery world, as does India in and of itself, where large-scale projects funded by global international financial institutions have both made it possible to sustain vastly greater populations, while salinizing essential agriculture land. There is no water panacea. But there are many types of water cures.
While at the U.S State Department in the Clinton Administration, I witnessed first-hand the incapacity of the government of Haiti to provide reliable power and clean water to its people by failing to maintain a vital hydroelectric plant. By contrast, I saw an inexpensive dam and turbine placed in a strategically-located stream provide electrical power and irrigation for winter rice to a remote rural village in Laos, making them food sufficient, enabling them to make textiles with power looms, and freeing them from dependence on opium as a cash crop. This was transformative, and nearly instantaneous, water-induced change.
Yes, political leadership on water matters. A decade ago, Perrier chose to pay upstream landowners $230 per hectare per year to reforest water infiltration zones and thereby protect the quality of its mineral water sources. The private sector has an important role to play. But at just under $10 a gallon for corporate water ($2.49 per liter in the familiar green glass), we will need a less expensive, out of the bottle, approach, one that is global in scope, local in reach, and soon.
In "Water," Steven Solomon traces the major turning points in world history to water innovation. People living in flooded river valleys had more food and learned how to store it. This led to food security and then prosperity through trade. Further mastery of water by way of new technologies, from barge and sailboat to mill and steam-engine, led to more prosperity and more trade, to the sanitary revolution of the 19th century and to the desalinization plants of today.
The book courses through water battles from Marc Antony and Octavian at the Battle of Actium to Nelson and Napoleon at Trafalgar; from water allocations devised by King Solomon to those advocated by ex-IMF head Michel Camdessus; from ancient water scientists such as Aristotle and Archimedes to early industrial-agers James Watt and Eli Whitney; and through environmentally oblivious leaders from Genghis Khan, who didn't understand water management, to George Bush, who in 2006 directed the dropping of 400 cases of illegal industrial discharges into wetlands his predecessors had protected under the Clean Water Act.
In covering personalities and events, Solomon suggests that societies that know how to take advantage of new ways of using water dominate their time, while those that fail to address water crises disintegrate. He cites with approval drip irrigation methods in Israel combined with shutting-down water subsidies, and as a counter-example, Saudi Arabian golf-course putting greens profligately maintained by tapping ancient, and rapidly declining, desert deep aquifers. He also suggests the dangers of concentrating water projects, noting for example, that the most gigantic water projects make inviting military and terrorist targets. For example, a bombing of Egypt's Aswan Dam could potentially create a tsunami of an order of magnitude greater than what took place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. According to Solomon, fear of what might happen in the course of a war to the High Dam was a factor in convincing Anwar Sadat to make peace with Israel.
Identifying water scarcity as the next inconvenient truth, Solomon makes arguments about water that are familiar from discussions about global warming and energy use. Water is precious and should be conserved, but conservation requires unpopular political decisions. There is always the hope of new technologies, like reverse osmotic devices for desalinization, but as with solar energy for power, these remain too costly to be widely practical, absent massive government subsidies.
Solomon suggests that the world should ultimately recognize access to clean, safe, fresh water as a basic human right, noting that its absence tends to produce famines, genocides, wars, disease, mass migrations, and ecological disasters. In the past, social and political tools to respond were often grossly inadequate to meet these demands. Today, the issue is not so much technological gaps, as a failure of will. Amsterdam and Venice provide contrasts in how to manage a watery world, as does India in and of itself, where large-scale projects funded by global international financial institutions have both made it possible to sustain vastly greater populations, while salinizing essential agriculture land. There is no water panacea. But there are many types of water cures.
While at the U.S State Department in the Clinton Administration, I witnessed first-hand the incapacity of the government of Haiti to provide reliable power and clean water to its people by failing to maintain a vital hydroelectric plant. By contrast, I saw an inexpensive dam and turbine placed in a strategically-located stream provide electrical power and irrigation for winter rice to a remote rural village in Laos, making them food sufficient, enabling them to make textiles with power looms, and freeing them from dependence on opium as a cash crop. This was transformative, and nearly instantaneous, water-induced change.
Yes, political leadership on water matters. A decade ago, Perrier chose to pay upstream landowners $230 per hectare per year to reforest water infiltration zones and thereby protect the quality of its mineral water sources. The private sector has an important role to play. But at just under $10 a gallon for corporate water ($2.49 per liter in the familiar green glass), we will need a less expensive, out of the bottle, approach, one that is global in scope, local in reach, and soon.
December 8, 2009
Key Dates: U.S. Policy in Afghanistan
President Obama's new strategy in Afghanistan, which calls for an increase of 30,000 U.S. troops beginning in January, 2010, with an expected pullout 18 months later, has sparked a lively debate about whether the president has committed political suicide for embracing a line of attack that is riddled with all kinds of political mines and traps.
Others, however, are solidly behind the administration in their belief that putting an end to any more significant Taliban gains in the region might be the boldest move yet in smothering Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.
Unquestionably, the United States' new surge marks a crucial juncture that will largely determine whether the war on terror is moving in the right direction, or has instead been disillusioned (again) by recklessly pursuing a complex operation in a troublesome region of the world in too short a time.
I have compiled a timeline of some key events of the United States/Afghanistan relations, dating back to the Soviet Union's invasion in 1979, along with dates on the rise, fall, and rise again of the Taliban.
***
Afghanistan/Taliban Timeline:
• December, 1979: To prevent the seizure of power by mujahedin (a loose alliance of Afghan opposition groups trained and funded by the CIA and the American government) from the Marxist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
• April, 1988: In the Geneva Accords (administered by the UN), Mikhail Gorbachev agrees to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan after incurring 13,400 casualties. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on February 15, 1989.
• January, 1989: The United States closed its embassy in Kabul.
• September 13, 1991: Governments in Washington and Moscow agree to cut off aid to Afghan combatants.
• April, 1992: The Soviet-backed Afghan regime fell to the mujahedin who established a rotating presidency.
• 1993-94: The Taliban movement is created by Afghan Islamic clerics and students, mostly of Pashtun origin.
• November, 1994: The Taliban (primarily Pashtun) headed by Mullah Omar, seized the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
• September 27, 1996: The Taliban attack Kabul, the Afghan capital, and take control of the government. During its time in power, the Taliban occupied 90 percent of the country.
• May 25, 1997: Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
• May 27, 1997: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined Pakistan in recognizing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• August, 1997: The U.S. State Department orders the closing of the Afghanistan Embassy in Washington.
• August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
• August 20, 1998: The U.S. fires missiles at presumed al Qaeda training camps in eastern Afghanistan. Osama bin laden escaped unharmed.
• October, 1999: The UN Security Council imposes a number of sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, including the freezing of funds and restricting travel of the groups' members.
• 2000: President Pervez Musharraf publicly declares Pakistan's support for the Taliban.
• February 2001: The George W. Bush administration, in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1333, begins talks with Pakistan in hopes that it will end its support with the Taliban.
• September 9, 2001: Ahmad Shah Masud, leader of the Northern Alliance (a group which unified anti-Taliban factions in Afghanistan) is assassinated by a suicide bomber, believed to have been linked to al-Qaeda operatives.
• By the time of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Taliban controlled 75 percent of Afghanistan.
• September 12, 2001: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 is adopted, interpreted by many as authorizing military action in response to the attacks; though the council lacked such authoritative powers.
• October 7, 2001: The United State launches ``Operation Enduring Freedom'', which calls for air strikes in Afghanistan against Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
• November 9, 2001: Mazar-e-Sharif, an Afghan city, falls to the Northern Alliance, dealing a swift blow to the Taliban.
• December, 2001: The Bonn Agreement creates an Afghan Interim Authority to serve as the "repository of Afghan sovereignty'', while outlining a political process for producing a new constitution and choosing a new Afghan government.
• December, 2001: The CIA narrowed bin Laden's location to the Tora Bora Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, but Afghan militia fighters let him slip away without a struggle.
• December 9, 2001: The Taliban regime is officially overthrown, when Qandahar, the last major Taliban stronghold in Afghan, falls; Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan flees the country and remains at large to this day.
• March 2-19. 2002: U.S. and Afghan forces launch: ``Operation Anaconda" in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, south of Gardez (Paktia Province) against 800 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
• June, 2002: Delegates of the Bonn Accords elect Hamid Karzai president of Afghanistan.
• March, 2003: ``Operation Valiant Strike'' is carried out when 1,000 U.S forces raid suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters in villages around Qandahar in the southern region of Afghanistan.
• May 1, 2003: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces an end to major combat in Afghanistan.
• December, 2003: Delegates of the Constitutional Loya Jirga approve a new constitution, paving the way for a presidential election in Afghanistan.
• October 9, 2004: Afghanistan holds its first presidential election with 80 percent of the population turning out to vote.
• November 3, 2004: Hamid Karzai is declared president of Afghanistan, winning 55.4 percent of the vote over his 17 challengers and thereby avoiding a runoff.
• 2007: The Taliban seize Musa Qala in the north of Helmand Province, where, according to the UN, the Taliban were believed to have formed their post-9/11 administration and judiciary.
• November 2007: The International Council on Security and Development, or ICOS, estimates the Taliban maintains a permanent presence in 54 percent of Afghanistan.
• January, 2008: An airstrike near Damadola, a village in Pakistan, approximately five miles from the Afghan border, kills Abu Laith al-Libi, believed to be a senior al-Qaeda operative.
• December, 2008: ICOS estimates the Taliban maintains a permanent presence in 72 percent of the country.
• February, 2009: Some independent U.S. scientists, using geographic mapping, speculate bin Laden might be residing across the border from his former Afghan stronghold at Tora Bora.
• April, 2009: U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan reaches 39.,000
• July, 2009: Newsweek reports Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has assumed command of the Taliban operations in Afghanistan.
• August, 2009: According to Afghan Interior Ministry figures, 13 districts in Afghanistan are under Taliban control, while another 133 of the 364 districts are in danger of being attacked by the Taliban, primarily in the Helmand or Qandahar Provinces.
• August 20, 2009: The Afghanistan presidential election takes place, an election stained by complaints of voting irregularities and ballot fraud.
• October 20, 2009: The Election Complaints Commission (EEC) determined approximately one million Karzai votes were fraudulent.
• October 21, 2009: Karzai accepts the EEC's findings and agrees to a runoff election, scheduled for November 7th.
• November 1, 2009: Karzai's rival, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, told supporters assembled at Kabul University that a runoff election would be pointless since the same voter fraud would in all likelihood take place again.
• November 2, 2009: With only one candidate on the runoff ballot, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) rules Kazari the winner of the presidential election
• August 30, 2009: Major General Herbert McChrystal submitted his review of the U.S. military strategy in which he recommends a comprehensive counter-insurgency and a troop increase of 44,000 additional U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan.
• December 1, 2009: President Obama announces 30,000 additional troops will be deployed to Afghanistan, beginning in January, 2010, in order to reverse the troublesome Taliban momentum and strengthen Afghanistan's security forces and government. The troop increase brings the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 68,000; 56,000 of which is part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that operates throughout Afghanistan, with the remainder belonging to the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom. ***
Afghanistan by the Numbers:
• 35 suicide bombings in 2009; 200 in 2008; 160 in 2007; 123 in 2006; 21 in 2005
• 51 percent of $40 billion U.S. assistance in Afghanistan has gone toward the training and equipping of Afghan forces, with the remaining devoted to infrastructure, humanitarian activities, and counter- narcotic programs.
• 100,000, total foreign force in Afghanistan, 88,000 of which are NATO/ISAF- International Security Assistance Force.
• 852 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, 659 by hostile action
• 94,000 members of the Afghan National Army (ANA), which includes civilian support.
• 11,000 total U.S and Partner trainers in Afghanistan; 66,200 U.S. military trainers as Embedded Training Troops and Police Mentoring Teams. 3,000 civilian trainers. 800 coalition trainers, including EUPOL for ANP (European Union contingent of 190 trainers, organized as OMLTs), and 41 German trainers of senior ANP.
• 10,000-15,000 Taliban fighters, according to U.S military and Afghan estimates.
• 2,100 Afghan civilians killed in 2008; 1,523 killed in 2007. 6,340 Afghans killed in 2008, including 6,500 Taliban killed in 2007.
• Average attacks per day in Afghanistan: 1,100 per month in 2009; 1,000 per month in 2008; 800 per month in 2007 and 2006; 400 in 2005. 2,000 roadside bombs in 2008, the highest its ever been.
Source: Congressional Research Service, Council on Foreign Relations, "The Taliban and The Crisis of Afghanistan" Edited by Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi
Others, however, are solidly behind the administration in their belief that putting an end to any more significant Taliban gains in the region might be the boldest move yet in smothering Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.
Unquestionably, the United States' new surge marks a crucial juncture that will largely determine whether the war on terror is moving in the right direction, or has instead been disillusioned (again) by recklessly pursuing a complex operation in a troublesome region of the world in too short a time.
I have compiled a timeline of some key events of the United States/Afghanistan relations, dating back to the Soviet Union's invasion in 1979, along with dates on the rise, fall, and rise again of the Taliban.
***
Afghanistan/Taliban Timeline:
• December, 1979: To prevent the seizure of power by mujahedin (a loose alliance of Afghan opposition groups trained and funded by the CIA and the American government) from the Marxist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
• April, 1988: In the Geneva Accords (administered by the UN), Mikhail Gorbachev agrees to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan after incurring 13,400 casualties. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on February 15, 1989.
• January, 1989: The United States closed its embassy in Kabul.
• September 13, 1991: Governments in Washington and Moscow agree to cut off aid to Afghan combatants.
• April, 1992: The Soviet-backed Afghan regime fell to the mujahedin who established a rotating presidency.
• 1993-94: The Taliban movement is created by Afghan Islamic clerics and students, mostly of Pashtun origin.
• November, 1994: The Taliban (primarily Pashtun) headed by Mullah Omar, seized the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
• September 27, 1996: The Taliban attack Kabul, the Afghan capital, and take control of the government. During its time in power, the Taliban occupied 90 percent of the country.
• May 25, 1997: Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
• May 27, 1997: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined Pakistan in recognizing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• August, 1997: The U.S. State Department orders the closing of the Afghanistan Embassy in Washington.
• August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
• August 20, 1998: The U.S. fires missiles at presumed al Qaeda training camps in eastern Afghanistan. Osama bin laden escaped unharmed.
• October, 1999: The UN Security Council imposes a number of sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, including the freezing of funds and restricting travel of the groups' members.
• 2000: President Pervez Musharraf publicly declares Pakistan's support for the Taliban.
• February 2001: The George W. Bush administration, in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1333, begins talks with Pakistan in hopes that it will end its support with the Taliban.
• September 9, 2001: Ahmad Shah Masud, leader of the Northern Alliance (a group which unified anti-Taliban factions in Afghanistan) is assassinated by a suicide bomber, believed to have been linked to al-Qaeda operatives.
• By the time of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Taliban controlled 75 percent of Afghanistan.
• September 12, 2001: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 is adopted, interpreted by many as authorizing military action in response to the attacks; though the council lacked such authoritative powers.
• October 7, 2001: The United State launches ``Operation Enduring Freedom'', which calls for air strikes in Afghanistan against Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
• November 9, 2001: Mazar-e-Sharif, an Afghan city, falls to the Northern Alliance, dealing a swift blow to the Taliban.
• December, 2001: The Bonn Agreement creates an Afghan Interim Authority to serve as the "repository of Afghan sovereignty'', while outlining a political process for producing a new constitution and choosing a new Afghan government.
• December, 2001: The CIA narrowed bin Laden's location to the Tora Bora Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, but Afghan militia fighters let him slip away without a struggle.
• December 9, 2001: The Taliban regime is officially overthrown, when Qandahar, the last major Taliban stronghold in Afghan, falls; Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan flees the country and remains at large to this day.
• March 2-19. 2002: U.S. and Afghan forces launch: ``Operation Anaconda" in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, south of Gardez (Paktia Province) against 800 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
• June, 2002: Delegates of the Bonn Accords elect Hamid Karzai president of Afghanistan.
• March, 2003: ``Operation Valiant Strike'' is carried out when 1,000 U.S forces raid suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters in villages around Qandahar in the southern region of Afghanistan.
• May 1, 2003: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces an end to major combat in Afghanistan.
• December, 2003: Delegates of the Constitutional Loya Jirga approve a new constitution, paving the way for a presidential election in Afghanistan.
• October 9, 2004: Afghanistan holds its first presidential election with 80 percent of the population turning out to vote.
• November 3, 2004: Hamid Karzai is declared president of Afghanistan, winning 55.4 percent of the vote over his 17 challengers and thereby avoiding a runoff.
• 2007: The Taliban seize Musa Qala in the north of Helmand Province, where, according to the UN, the Taliban were believed to have formed their post-9/11 administration and judiciary.
• November 2007: The International Council on Security and Development, or ICOS, estimates the Taliban maintains a permanent presence in 54 percent of Afghanistan.
• January, 2008: An airstrike near Damadola, a village in Pakistan, approximately five miles from the Afghan border, kills Abu Laith al-Libi, believed to be a senior al-Qaeda operative.
• December, 2008: ICOS estimates the Taliban maintains a permanent presence in 72 percent of the country.
• February, 2009: Some independent U.S. scientists, using geographic mapping, speculate bin Laden might be residing across the border from his former Afghan stronghold at Tora Bora.
• April, 2009: U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan reaches 39.,000
• July, 2009: Newsweek reports Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has assumed command of the Taliban operations in Afghanistan.
• August, 2009: According to Afghan Interior Ministry figures, 13 districts in Afghanistan are under Taliban control, while another 133 of the 364 districts are in danger of being attacked by the Taliban, primarily in the Helmand or Qandahar Provinces.
• August 20, 2009: The Afghanistan presidential election takes place, an election stained by complaints of voting irregularities and ballot fraud.
• October 20, 2009: The Election Complaints Commission (EEC) determined approximately one million Karzai votes were fraudulent.
• October 21, 2009: Karzai accepts the EEC's findings and agrees to a runoff election, scheduled for November 7th.
• November 1, 2009: Karzai's rival, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, told supporters assembled at Kabul University that a runoff election would be pointless since the same voter fraud would in all likelihood take place again.
• November 2, 2009: With only one candidate on the runoff ballot, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) rules Kazari the winner of the presidential election
• August 30, 2009: Major General Herbert McChrystal submitted his review of the U.S. military strategy in which he recommends a comprehensive counter-insurgency and a troop increase of 44,000 additional U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan.
• December 1, 2009: President Obama announces 30,000 additional troops will be deployed to Afghanistan, beginning in January, 2010, in order to reverse the troublesome Taliban momentum and strengthen Afghanistan's security forces and government. The troop increase brings the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 68,000; 56,000 of which is part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that operates throughout Afghanistan, with the remainder belonging to the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom. ***
Afghanistan by the Numbers:
• 35 suicide bombings in 2009; 200 in 2008; 160 in 2007; 123 in 2006; 21 in 2005
• 51 percent of $40 billion U.S. assistance in Afghanistan has gone toward the training and equipping of Afghan forces, with the remaining devoted to infrastructure, humanitarian activities, and counter- narcotic programs.
• 100,000, total foreign force in Afghanistan, 88,000 of which are NATO/ISAF- International Security Assistance Force.
• 852 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, 659 by hostile action
• 94,000 members of the Afghan National Army (ANA), which includes civilian support.
• 11,000 total U.S and Partner trainers in Afghanistan; 66,200 U.S. military trainers as Embedded Training Troops and Police Mentoring Teams. 3,000 civilian trainers. 800 coalition trainers, including EUPOL for ANP (European Union contingent of 190 trainers, organized as OMLTs), and 41 German trainers of senior ANP.
• 10,000-15,000 Taliban fighters, according to U.S military and Afghan estimates.
• 2,100 Afghan civilians killed in 2008; 1,523 killed in 2007. 6,340 Afghans killed in 2008, including 6,500 Taliban killed in 2007.
• Average attacks per day in Afghanistan: 1,100 per month in 2009; 1,000 per month in 2008; 800 per month in 2007 and 2006; 400 in 2005. 2,000 roadside bombs in 2008, the highest its ever been.
Source: Congressional Research Service, Council on Foreign Relations, "The Taliban and The Crisis of Afghanistan" Edited by Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi
November 26, 2009
No Fair Election In Honduras Under Military Occupation
As the Honduran election approaches this Sunday, let's be clear about the conditions under which it is taking place. Human rights abuses are rampant, freedom of speech is under attack, and the election process is in the hands of the very people who perpetrated the coup. Clearly, no free and fair election is possible under the repressive thumb of the military coup that has been in place for five months.
While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results -- once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.
President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.
Imagine a "free and fair election" under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):
The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.
The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.
The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes--who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election--has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation's second largest city.
All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women's groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement--united in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat--have denounced the election as fraudulent.
The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.
Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.
The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.
The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.
No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place. By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn't change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation's politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.
The vast majority of Hondurans aren't fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.
President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.
While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results -- once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.
President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.
Imagine a "free and fair election" under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):
The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.
The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.
The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes--who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election--has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation's second largest city.
All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women's groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement--united in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat--have denounced the election as fraudulent.
The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.
Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.
The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.
The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.
No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place. By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn't change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation's politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.
The vast majority of Hondurans aren't fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.
President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.