Obama considers reaching out to Taliban, admitting the US is not winning the war in Afghanistan

Friends mourn Frisco man killed while serving in Afghanistan

02:03 PM CDT on Monday, March 9, 2009

By ROY APPLETON / The Dallas Morning News

On the ice hockey rink and wrestling mat, Peter John Courcy battled for Frisco High School with power and authority.

He joined the fight last year on the sands and in the mountains of Afghanistan, living a lifelong dream of military service.

Now his family, friends and respectful strangers are mourning his death – weeks before his scheduled return to North Texas and his parents, wife and infant son.

U.S. Army Spc. Courcy, 22, and a fellow soldier died Tuesday when a car packed with explosives plowed into their convoy-leading Humvee near the American base at Salerno.

"I lost a piece of my soul that day," his squad leader, Sgt. Bruce Hunter, said Friday, recalling the midmorning attack and remembering a friend who always wanted to man the lead .50-caliber machine gun on patrols.

"He knew the dangers. He knew the risks. But he did it every day," said Sgt. Hunter, whose mother and grandparents live in the Collin County city of Princeton.

Born at Fort Hood in Central Texas, Peter Courcy "always wanted to be in the military," said his father, Chris Bush of Frisco.

In Afghanistan, his platoon remains mindful of their losses and ever-present threats, Sgt. Hunter said.

"We're fighting for the Courcys and everyone else" killed in action, he said. "And we won't stop until we get orders to get home."

Obama considers reaching out to Taliban

8. March 2009, 13:08
WASHINGTON (AFP) –

US President Barack Obama said, in an interview published Sunday, that the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan and hinted at possible talks with moderate elements of the Taliban.

Highlighting the success of the US strategy of bringing some Sunni Iraqi insurgents to the negotiating table and away from Al-Qaeda, Obama told The New York Times that "there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region."

The strategy in Iraq had been developed by General David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the country.

"If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al-Qaeda in Iraq," Obama said in the interview published in the online edition of the Times.

But Obama warned that Afghanistan was not Iraq, and that reconciliation efforts could face difficulties.

"The situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex. You have a less governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. Those tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross purposes, so figuring all that out is going to be a much more of a challenge," he said.

During his presidential campaign last year, Obama told Time magazine that opportunities to negotiate with some Taliban elements "should be explored."

Asked by the Times if the United States was winning the war in Afghanistan, which he has called the "central front in the war on terror," Obama simply replied: "No."

"You've seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years. The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think in the southern regions of the country, you're seeing them attack in ways that we have not seen previously," he said.

"The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people."

Shortly after taking office in January, Obama launched a review of US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan that is set to be delivered before he heads to Europe on March 31 for a round of international meetings.

In his first major decision as commander-in-chief, he ordered the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, saying they were needed to stabilize a deteriorating security situation.

Part of the troops' role will be to help boost security during Afghan presidential elections now set to take place in August.

"We've got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that Al-Qaeda and extremists that would do us harm don't have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate," Obama said.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a known haven for Taliban extremists.

"At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan policy. As long as you've got safe havens in these border regions that the Pakistani government can't control or reach, in effective ways, we're going to continue to see vulnerability on the Afghan side of the border," Obama said.

More than two dozen suspected US drone attacks have been carried out in Pakistan since August 2008, killing more than 200 people, most of them militants.

Pakistan is a key ally in the US-led "war against terror" but the missile strikes have fueled anti-American sentiment in the country, particularly in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

US Vice President Joe Biden, who visited Southwest Asia recently, heads to Brussels on Monday for consultations with top NATO allies on a new US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Karzai said Sunday he could remain in power after his term ends and until August elections, provided it was agreed by the Supreme Court or via a consensus of tribal leaders.

Karzai's term ends on May 21, but with presidential elections now set for August, there is intense debate about who should rule the country in the meantime.

President Barack Obama floats the idea of talks with Taliban moderates

The Associated Press

Sunday, March 8th 2009, 1:43 AM

President Obama said the U.S. is not winning the war in Afghanistan and suggested trying to engage moderate elements of the Taliban in reconciliation talks.

"Our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation," Obama told The New York Times in an interview. "But you've seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years. The Taliban is bolder than it was."

Obama said the U.S. should try to identify Taliban moderates just as they did Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq, a practice credited with helping to ratchet down the violence there.

U.S. troops were able to persuade Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq to cooperate in some instances because they had been alienated by the tactics of Al-Qaeda.

Still, Obama said in the interview, published Saturday on the newspaper's Web site, that the situation in Afghanistan is much more complicated than Iraq.

Obama cautioned that Afghanistan is a less-governed region with a history of fierce independence among tribes, creating a tough set of circumstances for the United States to deal with.

Murtha says Afghanistan plan lacks goal

3. March 2009, 13:13
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON –

Rep. John Murtha said Tuesday the situation in Afghanistan is so challenging that he estimated it would take 600,000 troops to fully squelch violence in the country.

The Pennsylvania Democrat, who chairs the powerful subcommittee that funds the military, said his figure was based on the country's history of rigorous fighting and its size.

"That's what I estimate it would take in a country that size to get it under control," Murtha said in an interview.

Also Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he cannot predict when the United States would be able to leave Afghanistan, but that it won't be soon.

"We would all like to have a situation in which our mission in Afghanistan has been completed and we can bring our troops home," Gates said during a Pentagon news conference. "I do not see that happening anytime in the near future, and I think it's impossible to put a date on when you might firmly say all the troops are coming" home.

Murtha also said he's uncomfortable with President Barack Obama's decision to increase the number of troops in the country by 17,000 before a goal was clearly defined. But he says he anticipates a plan will be developed to train Afghan security forces, and then the U.S. military will get out. He said he sees Afghanistan has more of a diplomatic mission, than a military one.

"I think you'll see a change," Murtha said. "I'm confident you're going to see them only adjusting for a short period of time with these additional troops."

Last month, Obama announced new troops would be sent to Afghanistan to augment the 38,000 there. The number of troops eventually to be sent to Afghanistan will depend on what strategy the Obama administration lays out, and that is under review.

There already, however, has been much debate about troops numbers. Some argue that too many forces would be counterproductive, partly because of Afghan distaste for having foreign forces on their soil.

Huge numbers have been mentioned before, including by the previous NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill. He told a Pentagon press conference last year that if commanders were to go by U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, for example, and apply the factors of land mass and population, the number needed might be well over 400,000, including international forces and indigenous forces.

Commanders believe the best force to use against an insurgency is generally the local force and have been working with difficulty for years to train and equip Afghan security forces.

'Impossible' to set date for Afghan withdrawal: Gates

3. March 2009, 13:14
WASHINGTON (AFP) –

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday it was too early to set a date for the eventual withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan.

"We would all like to have a situation in which our mission in Afghanistan has been completed and we can bring our troops home. I do not see that happening anytime in the near future," Gates told a news conference with his French counterpart, Herve Morin.

"I think it's impossible to put a date on when you might firmly say all the troops are coming out," Gates said.

The defense chief said a review of US strategy now underway was examining the goals of the Afghan mission and how progress towards those objectives could be measured.

"And I think we will have a much better idea of the way forward, at least as far as the United States is concerned, when that review is complete," Gates said.

About 38,000 US troops are stationed in Afghanistan and President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of additional 17,000 troops to bolster the fight against Taliban insurgents and associated groups.

Morin said that France shared the same view and that a strategy with clearly-defined objectives would demonstrate that international troops do not intend to stay "forever."

"We will stay as long as necessary," Morin said. "As the president of the Republic (Nicolas Sarkozy) said and as we all say, here, we do not want to stay forever."

France has more than 3,000 troops serving in Afghanistan.

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