British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo

[Barrett808]

Source: Times Online

British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo
Charles Bremner in Paris and Michael Evans, Defence Editor

Britain’s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office heavyweight with a reputation for blunt speaking, delivered his bleak assessment of the seven-year Nato campaign in Afghanistan in a briefing with a French diplomat, according to French leaks. However sources in Whitehall said the account was a parody of the British Ambassador’s remarks.

François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador to Kabul, told President Sarkozy’s office and the Foreign Ministry in a coded cable that Sir Sherard believed that “the current situation is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the Government has lost all trust”.

According to Mr Fitou, Sir Sherard told him on September 2 that the Nato-led military operation was making things worse. “The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic,” the Ambassador was quoted as saying.

Britain had no alternative to supporting the United States in Afghanistan, “but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one”, he was quoted as saying. “In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is doomed to fail.”

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4860080.ece

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'Grim' Afghanistan Report To Be Kept Secret by US
"No Plans to Declassify" New National Intelligence Estimate for White House
By BRIAN ROSS

September 23, 2008—US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as "grim", but there are "no plans to declassify" any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process. ...

According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a "grim" picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors. ...

Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan at the Rand Corporation think tank, called the situation in Afghanistan "dire."

"We are now at a tipping point, with about half of the country now penetrated by a range of Sunni militant groups including the Taliban and al Queida," Jones said. Jones said there is growing concern that Dutch and Canadian forces in Afghanistan would "call it quits."

"The US military would then need six, eight, maybe ten brigades but we just don't have that many," Jones said.

Last week, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress "we're running out of time" in Afghanistan. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," Adm. Mullen testified.

Perhaps foreshadowing the NIE assessment on Afghanistan, Adm. Mullen told Congress, "absent a broader international and interagency approach to the problems there, it is my professional opinion that no amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan."

(more)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4071353

[Selatius]

1. I'm going to quote from the movie Rambo III:

Mousa: This is Afghanistan... Alexander the Great try to conquer this country... then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people... you wish to hear?

Rambo: Um-hum.

Mousa: Very good. It says, 'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.' Understand what this means?

Rambo: That you guys don't take any shit?

Mousa: Yes... something like this.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. One thing the Afghans

have always had on their side: Terrain

[stillcool]

2. Just thought I'd pass this on....

Third World Traveler is a wonderful source for just about anything going on in our world today, or yesterday. I do a search on their homepage whenever I wonder why on a variety of subjects and I always come up with reams of information that make the world so much more logical.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/

Don't Mess with Unocal
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Central_Asia_watch/Don%27t%20Mess_Unocal.html
by Craig Rosebraugh
Toward Freedom magazine, January 2002
In 1995, the US-based Unocal oil company signed a tentative agreement with the Turkmenistan government to research the possibilities of constructing an oil pipeline to Pakistan by way of Afghanistan. As the project developed, Unocal began to seek the agreement of the Taliban, who had recently risen to power. On two separate occasions, in February and December 1997, Taliban officials were flown to the US to meet with, and be wined and dined by, Unocal executives.
The Taliban was simultaneously pressured by Argentinean oil company Birdas for control of the proposed pipeline.
Taliban officials issued two demands to both companies before any agreement could be reached. They wanted Unocal and Birdas to construct an open pipeline, one that could be tapped into from Afghanistan for local consumption. Second, they wanted the companies to get involved in building roads, water supplies, telephone lines, and electrical power lines. While Birdas agreed to meet the demands and build an open pipeline, Unocal refused, preferring a closed pipeline for export only. Birdas and the Taliban initially reached an agreement, but the deal later fell through due to lack of financing.
During the mid-1990s, the Unocal project received strong support from the US government. From 1995-98, especially after the Taliban seized control of Kabul in September 1996, Clinton administration officials actively lobbied Taliban officials on behalf of Unocal. At the time, the US expressed little, if any, concern about the mounting evidence of abuses of women's rights.
Despite an increasing lack of cooperation from the Taliban, Unocal continued to push the project. Testifying before the House US Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on February 12, 1998, Unocal representative John Maresca discussed the importance of the pipeline project-and the increasing difficulties in dealing with the Taliban. "The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels .... From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, leaders, and our company." A second pipeline was proposed in 1997, this time by the Central Asia Gas Pipeline Consortium, or CentGas, in which Unocal held the major interest. The proposed line would run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to markets in Pakistan and India. Conflicts emerged again, as Maresca testified to Congress.

[Indenturedebtor]

4. For once though I don't think we went there for oil

Chalk this up to another failing of the Bush Regime.

This is just great. Just fucking wonderful. Another quagmire. WAY TO GO!!!!!!!!!!! They never should have pulled those troops out to go ruin Iraq.

[and-justice-for-all]

5. Kabal is the only place where Karzi has authority..

but even there it is shaky. Outside of Kabal, it is all ran by Warlords, Karzi has no authority outside Kabal.