Dar Yasin/Associated Press
An American soldier guarding the Parwan detention facility near Bagram
Air Base in Afghanistan last year. Korans from the library at Parwan
were mistakenly incinerated at the Bagram base last week.
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and THOM SHANKER
Published: February 26, 2012
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CloseDiggRedditTumblrPermalink WASHINGTON — American officials sought
to reassure both Afghanistan's government and a domestic audience on
Sunday that the United States remained committed to the war after the
weekend killing of two American military officers inside the Afghan
Interior Ministry and days of deadly anti-American protests.
Related
Blast Wounds at Least 6 Americans in Afghanistan (February 27, 2012)
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But behind the public pronouncements, American officials described a
growing concern, even at the highest levels of the Obama
administration and Pentagon, about the challenges of pulling off a
troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that hinges on the close mentoring and
training of army and police forces.
Despite an American-led training effort that has spanned years and
cost tens of billions of dollars, the Afghan security forces are still
widely seen as riddled with dangerously unreliable soldiers and police
officers. The distrust has only deepened as a pattern of attacks by
Afghan security forces on American and NATO service members, beginning
years ago, has drastically worsened over the past few days. A grenade
attack on Sunday, apparently by a protester, wounded at least six
American soldiers.
Nearly a week of violent unrest after American personnel threw Korans
into a pit of burning trash has brought into sharp relief the growing
American and Afghan frustration — and, at times, open hostility — and
the risks of a strategy that calls for American soldiers and civilians
to work closely with Afghans.
The United States now has what one senior American official said was
"almost no margin of error" in trying to achieve even limited goals in
Afghanistan after a series of crises that have stirred resentment.
The official said the unrest might complicate but was unlikely to
significantly alter the overall plan: to keep pulling out troops and
focus instead on using Special Operations forces to train the Afghans
and go after insurgent and militant leaders in targeted raids while
diplomats try opening talks with the Taliban.
At the same time, the administration plans to continue negotiations on
a long-term framework to guide relations with Afghanistan after the
NATO mission through the International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) ends in 2014. Officials from the White House, the State
Department, the Pentagon and other agencies are to begin meeting this
week to hammer out details of the various efforts, and to work out the
size of the next round of withdrawals, which President Obama is
expected to announce at a NATO summit meeting planned for May in
Chicago.
Those immediate talks, officials say, could be most affected. What
only weeks ago was an undercurrent of anti-Americanism in Afghanistan
is now a palpable fury, and if the situation continues to deteriorate
at its current pace, plans could be altered, the official said.
"There's a certain impatience — I mean, there are people who don't see
how we succeed under the current conditions, and their case is getting
stronger," the official said.
Hundreds of American military and civilian advisers have already been
pulled out of the Afghan ministries and government departments in
Kabul, the capital. While that move has been described as temporary,
the official declined to speculate about what kind of long-term
changes could be envisioned. The official and others interviewed for
this article spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the crisis with Afghanistan.
Another administration official said the unrest was "going to have a
really negative effect" on all the initiatives but added that much
remained unclear and that the focus was on damage control.
Regardless of the challenges, and possible setbacks to vital
negotiations, senior American officials said on Sunday that the
mission had to go on. "This is not the time to decide that we're done
here," the American ambassador in Kabul, Ryan C. Crocker, said in an
interview on CNN. "We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to
create a situation in which Al Qaeda is not coming back."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed regret for the
burning of the Korans but said it should not derail the American
military and diplomatic effort in Afghanistan. "We are condemning it
in the strongest possible terms," she said in Rabat, Morocco, "but we
also believe that the violence must stop, and the hard work of trying
to build a more peaceful, prosperous and secure Afghanistan must
continue."
Another administration official said, however, that there was
recognition that the commitment was most likely to carry a greater
political cost. "There is no less a commitment to a long-term
relationship with Afghanistan," the official said. "But is there a
concern now that many will question the need to stay? Yes — especially
in an election year."
Continued Here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/world/asia/burning-of-korans-complicates-us-pullout-plan-in-afghanistan.html?google_editors_picks=true
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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