Military News you may have missed – Oct 21

Policy — Taliban’s Elite, Aided by NATO, Join Talks for Afghan Peace

Key highlights:

  • Taliban Quetta and Peshawar Shura and Haqqani Network are participating in Afghan peace talks
  • NATO/ISAF is providing transport and security to delegates from safe-havens to Kabul
  • Delegates are senior members

Analysis:  These talks have become a necessary component of an overall strategy to obtain a political solution because a viable military solution does not exist – we cannot “kill/capture” our way to victory in Afghanistan.

Policy — Petraeus rewrites the playbook in ...

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Rules of Engagement and the Taliban: Blind Man’s Bluff?

In a revealing article published today (October 20, 2010) in the Washington Examiner, Sara A. Carter, National Security Correspondent reports that “Troops Chafe at Restrictive Rules of Engagement” and reported talks with the Taliban. 

As reported earlier, frontline troops in Afghanistan have not been entirely pleased (read “pissed off”) at  current Rules of Engagement which govern military action by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.    As readers of SFTT are aware, retired General McChrystal, then commander of military forces in Afghanistan, radically modified the ...

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Rules of Engagement: Battlefield Dilemma

The Washington recently aired a story on the increased frustration with the “Rules of Engagement” governing military personnel deployed in Afghanistan.  The story, written by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, documents several incidences where US troops under attack were not able call in additional support for fear of wounding or killing civilians.  Said one disgruntled soldier interviewed for the Washington Post article, ‘”this is not how you fight a war, at least not in Kandahar, we’ve been handcuffed by our chain of command.”

According to ...

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