“On September 13, 2009, President [Barack] Obama convened the first meeting of his war cabinet to develop a strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and reverse the gains that the Taliban had made during the past several years.” – Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Page 321 […]
9/11/2009
“…in September [11] 2009, the D.C. Court of Appeals dismissed a five year old civil suit against two American military contractors, CACI International and L-3 Communications Holdings’ Titan unit. Both companies were being sued by Iraqi victims of torture for mistreatment and torture committed at Abu Ghraib; however, the Court dismissed the claim saying that […]
9/6/2009
“In a [September 6] 2009 meeting with John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, [Yemeni President] Mr. [Ali Abdullah] Saleh offered an unusual bargain. He ‘insisted that Yemen’s national territory is available for unilateral CT [counterterrorist] operations by the U.S.’–but with a catch. If there were to be an attack on a Western target, […]
9/6/2009
From coverage of classified State Department documents exposed by WikiLeaks: “The president of Yemen secretly offered US forces unrestricted access to his territory to conduct unilateral strikes against al-Qaida terrorist targets, the leaked US embassy cables reveal. In a move that risked outraging local and Arab opinion, Ali Abdullah Saleh told [President] Barack Obama’s deputy […]
8/30/2009
U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal wrote, in a leaked report from August 30, 2009: ” ‘Our campaign in Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced and remains so today. Almost every aspect of our collective effort and associated resourcing has lagged a growing insurgency–historically a recipe for failure in COIN [counterinsurgency strategy]. Success will require a […]
8/30/2009
In a leaked report from August 30, 2009, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal “was blunt in describing the posture of U.S. and NATO troops: ‘Preoccupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us–physically and psychologically–from the people we seek to protect. …The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily, […]
8/30/2009
“After arriving in Afghanistan last June [2009], the general [Commander of U.S. and NATO Forces in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal] conducted his own policy review, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The now-infamous report [released on August 30, 2009] was leaked to the press, and its conclusion was dire: If we didn’t send another 40,000 […]
8/30/2009
Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal’s August 30, 2009, assessment of the war “made a number of key points–that the situation in Afghanistan was ‘serious,’ that the Taliban…were running a de facto government in southern Afghanistan with shadow governors, sharia courts, tax collectors, and even Taliban ombudsmen to handle the complaints of […]
8/30/2009
On August 30, 2009, former Vice President Dick Cheney discussed the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques on Fox News Sunday. He said: " '…my sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States, and giving us the intelligence […]
8/29/2009
“One former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the [CIA’s enhanced] interrogations were carried out said [9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed, like several other detainees, seemed to have decided that it was okay to stop resisting after he had endured a certain amount of pressure. ‘Once the harsher techniques were used on [detainees], they […]