Saturday 30 January 2010


WASHINGTON WORKS THE AF-PAK-INDIA TRIANGLE

Zahid U Kramet

Asia Times, January 30, 2010

LAHORE - The United States' Af-Pak special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been running from pillar to post between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to end the "war on terror" and bring some sort of stability to the South Asian region.

Until now they have not made much progress. The war persists. A troop surge in Afghanistan was seen as the solution. And, acceding to the requests of his counter-insurgency expert, General David Petraeus, and his commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, President Barack Obama sanctioned an additional 30,000 US troops to ramp up the approximately 100,000-strong coalition force already present in Afghanistan.

Obama's December 1, 2009, address at the West Point Military Academy charted a new course when he remarked, "These additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in 2011 ... America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan." In his State of the Union address this week, Obama reiterated his commitment to having US troops begin to leave Afghanistan in July 2011.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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