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Trump renews Afghan commitment but says 'no blank check'

US President Donald Trump speaks during his address to the nation from Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday. (AFP)
Updated 22 August 2017
REUTERS, AFP
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Trump renews Afghan commitment but says 'no blank check'

Updated 22 August 2017
REUTERS, AFP

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump opened the door on Monday night to an increase in US troops in Afghanistan as part of a retooled strategy for the region, overcoming his own doubts about America’s longest war and vowing “a fight to win.”
Trump, in a prime-time televised address at a military base near Washington, said his new approach was aimed at preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for Islamist militants bent on attacking the United States.
The Republican president, who has repeatedly criticized the Afghanistan strategies of his predecessors, now inherits the same challenges, including a resurgent Taliban and a weak government in Kabul. He is laying the groundwork for greater US involvement without a clear end in sight or providing specific benchmarks for success.
In a speech with few details, Trump did not specify how many more troops would be added, gave no timeline for ending the US presence in Afghanistan, and put pressure on Pakistan, India and NATO allies to step up their own commitment.
But officials said he had signed off on Defense Secretary James Mattis’ plans to send about 4,000 more to add to the 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan.
He warned US support was not open-ended — “our support is not a blank check” — and insisted he would not engage in “nation-building,” a practice he has accused his predecessors of doing at huge cost.
“We are not nation-building. We are killing terrorists,” he said.
Trump laid out a tougher approach to US policy toward Pakistan. Senior US officials warned he could reduce security assistance for Pakistan unless the nuclear-armed nation cooperates more in preventing militants from using safe havens on its soil.
“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens,” Trump said. “Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor terrorists.”
A Pakistani army spokesman said on Monday that Pakistan had taken action against all Islamist militants including the Haqqani network, which is allied to Afghan Taliban insurgents.
“There are no terrorist hideouts in Pakistan. We have operated against all terrorists, including (the) Haqqani network,” spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor told a media briefing in Islamabad.
Trump expanded the US military’s authority for American armed forces to target militant and criminal networks. He said that US enemies in Afghanistan “need to know they have nowhere to hide — that no place is beyond the reach of American arms.”
“Our troops will fight to win,” he added.
A US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Islamist Taliban government for harboring Al-Qaeda militants who plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. But US forces have remained bogged down there through the presidencies of Republican George W. Bush, Democrat Barack Obama and now Trump. About 2,400 US forces have died in Afghanistan since the invasion.

PAST SKEPTICISM
The speech came after a months-long review of US policy in which Trump frequently tangled with his top advisers on the future of US involvement in Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents have been making territorial gains.
US military and intelligence officials are concerned that a Taliban victory over Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government would allow Al-Qaeda and Islamic State’s regional affiliate to establish bases in Afghanistan from which to plot attacks against the United States and its allies.
“The unfortunate truth is that this strategy is long overdue and in the interim the Taliban has made dangerous inroads,” said senior Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Republican president overcame his own skepticism about the war that began in October 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. He said repeatedly on the campaign trail last year that the war was too costly in lives and money.
“My original instinct was to pull out,” he said in his speech, but added he was convinced by his national security advisers to strengthen the US ability to prevent the Taliban from ousting the US-backed government in Kabul.
Trump’s speech came as the president tries to rebound after he was engulfed in controversy for saying both sides were to blame for violence between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month.
In an allusion to the Charlottesville uproar, Trump said: “We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other.”
Trump also said the United States wanted India to help more with Afghanistan, especially in the areas of economic assistance and development.
He made clear his patience had limits in support of the Afghanistan government, saying Kabul needed to increase its cooperation in order to justify a continued American commitment.
Trump said it could be possible to have a political settlement with elements of the Taliban.
“But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen,” he said.
US commanders have long planned for a possible shift in resources from Iraq to Afghanistan as the fight against Islamic State comes off its peak, following gains made in the Iraqi city of Mosul and other areas.
One reason the White House decision took so long, two officials who participated in the discussions said on Sunday, is that it was difficult to get Trump to accept the need for a broader regional strategy that included US policy toward Pakistan.
Trump received a wide range of conflicting options, the officials said.
White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other advisers favored accepting a request for an 4,000 additional US forces.
But recently ousted White House strategic adviser Steve Bannon had argued for the withdrawal of all US forces, saying the war was still not winnable, US officials said. Bannon was fired on Friday by Trump.
 
The US intervention in Afghanistan: key developments
Below are developments in the US military presence in Afghanistan, as President Donald Trump unveiled Monday his new strategy for the country and cleared the way to send thousands more US troops there.
Currently 8,400 American soldiers are taking part in NATO’s operation in Afghanistan, which comprises a total of 13,000 troops in all. Most of them are charged with overseeing and training Afghan forces.

• On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks, US president George W. Bush launches operation “Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, after the Taliban regime refuses to hand over Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.
In a matter of weeks the US-led forces overthrow the Taliban, in power since 1996.
Apart from air strikes, the US backs the Afghan Northern Alliance, which is fighting the Taliban, contributing paramilitary teams from the CIA and special forces.
Some 1,000 American soldiers are deployed on the ground in November, rising to 10,000 the year after.

• Attention is diverted from Afghanistan as US forces in 2003 mount an invasion of Iraq, which becomes the main US concern.
The Taliban and other Islamist groups regroup in their strongholds in the south and east of Afghanistan, from where they can easily travel to and from Pakistani tribal zones.
In 2008 the American command on the ground calls for manpower to carry out an effective strategy against the Taliban insurgency. Bush agrees to send additional soldiers and by mid-2008 there are 48,500 US troops there.

• In 2009, in the first months of the presidency of Barack Obama — elected on campaign promises to end the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — there is a surge in the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan to around 68,000.
In December, Obama raises the strength of US forces in Afghanistan to around 100,000.
The objective is to put brakes on the Taliban and to strengthen Afghan institutions.

• Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that started the war, is killed on May 2, 2011 during an operation by US special forces in Pakistan, where he is in hiding.

• In September 2014 Afghanistan signs a bilateral security accord with the US and a similar text with NATO: 12,500 foreign soldiers, of which 9,800 are Americans, will remain in the country in 2015, after the end of the NATO combat mission at the end of 2014.
From the beginning of 2015, American troops will be charged with two missions: anti-terrorist operations against Al-Qaeda and the training of Afghan forces.
In late December, the NATO combat mission ends, and is replaced by an assistance mission baptized “Resolute Support.”
However, the security situation degenerates.
Amid a resurgent Taliban, on July 6, 2016, Obama again slows down the pace of withdrawal, saying that 8,400 US troops will remain in Afghanistan into 2017.

• On October 3, 2015, at the height of combat between Islamist insurgents and the Afghan army, backed by NATO special forces, a US airstrike bombs a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) in northern Kunduz province, killing 42, including 24 patients and 14 members of the NGO.

• On April 13, 2017, the US military drops the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, hitting Islamic State positions in a network of tunnels and caves in the east, killing 96 jihadists.
In July, the American army kills the IS’s new leader in Afghanistan, the third such chief slain by Washington and Kabul.

• On February 1, 2017 a US government report says that losses of Afghan security forces have climbed by 35 percent in 2016 compared with the previous year.
On February 9, the US general in command of the NATO force, General John Nicholson, warns that he needs thousands more troops, telling Congress: “I believe we’re in a stalemate.”
On August 21 Trump cleared the way for the deployment of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan in his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief.
Following the president’s speech Monday US Defense Secretary James Mattis announced Monday that America and several allies have committed to boosting their troop numbers in Afghanistan.
Senior White House officials say President Donald Trump has already authorized Mattis to deploy up to 3,900 more troops to Afghanistan.
 

Topics: Afghanistan Kabul Donald Trump

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Germany marks 1989 Berlin Wall fall with ‘Preserve Freedom’ party

Updated 2 sec ago
AFP
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Germany marks 1989 Berlin Wall fall with ‘Preserve Freedom’ party

Updated 2 sec ago
AFP
BERLIN: Germany marks 35 years since the Berlin Wall fell with festivities from Saturday under the theme “Preserve Freedom!” as Russia’s war rages in Ukraine and many fear democracy is under attack.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz — whose coalition dramatically collapsed this week — said in a message to the nation that the liberal ideals of 1989 “are not something we can take for granted.”
“A look at our history and at the world around us shows this,” added Scholz, whose three-party ruling alliance imploded on the day Donald Trump was reelected, plunging Germany into political turmoil and toward new elections.
November 9, 1989 is celebrated as the day East Germany’s dictatorship opened the borders to the West after months of peaceful mass protests, paving the way for German reunification and the collapse of Soviet communism.
One Berliner who remembers those momentous events, retiree Jutta Krueger, 75, said about the political crisis hitting just ahead of the anniversary weekend: “It’s a shame that it’s coinciding like this now.”
“But we should still really celebrate the fall of the Wall,” she said, hailing it as the moment East Germans could travel and “freedom had arrived throughout Germany.”
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will kick off events on Saturday at the Berlin Wall Memorial, honoring the at least 140 people killed trying to flee the Moscow-backed German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the Cold War.
In the evening, a “freedom party” with a music and light show will be held at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate, on the former path of the concrete barrier that had cut the city in two since 1961.
On Sunday, the Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot will perform in front of the former headquarters of the Stasi, former East Germany’s feared secret police.
Pro-democracy activists from around the world have been invited for the commemorations — among them Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad.
Talks, performances and a large-scale open-air art exhibition will also mark what culture minister Claudia Roth called “one of the most joyous moments in world history.”
Replica placards from the 1989 protests will be on display along four kilometers of the Wall’s route, past the historic Reichstag building and the famous Checkpoint Charlie.
Also among the art installations will be thousands of images created by citizens on the theme of “freedom,” to drive home the enduring relevance of the historical event.


Berlin’s top cultural affairs official Joe Chialo said the theme was crucial “at a time when we are confronted by rising populism, disinformation and social division.”
Axel Klausmeier, head of the Berlin Wall foundation, said the values of the 1989 protests “are the power-bank for the defense of our democracy, which today is being gnawed at from the left and the right.”
Most East Germans are grateful the GDR regime ended but many also have unhappy memories of the perceived arrogance of West Germans, and resentment lingers about a remaining gap in incomes and pensions.
These sentiments have been cited to explain the strong support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in eastern Germany, as well as for the Russia-friendly and anti-capitalist BSW.
Strong gains for both at three state elections in the east in September highlighted the enduring political divisions between eastern and western Germany over three decades since reunification.
While the troubled government led by Scholz’s Social Democrats and the opposition CDU strongly supports Ukraine’s fightback against Russia, the anti-establishment AfD and BSW oppose it.
The AfD, which rails against immigration, was embarrassed this week when several of its members were arrested as suspected members of a racist paramilitary group that had practiced urban warfare drills.
On the eve of the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann recalled that the weekend will also mark another, far darker chapter in German history.
During the Nazis’ Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, at least 90 Jews were murdered, countless properties destroyed and 1,400 synagogues torched in Germany and Austria.
Hoffmann said that “it is very important for our society to remember the victims... and learn the correct lessons from those events for our conduct today.”

UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

Updated 09 November 2024
Arab News
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UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

  • Powell, who was chief of staff to former PM Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, was an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process
  • He faced criticism for his part in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq
Updated 09 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: The UK’s Labour government has appointed Jonathan Powell, an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process, as its new national security adviser.

Powell, who served as chief of staff to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for a decade between 1997 and 2007, was deeply involved in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

In 2014, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him the UK’s special envoy to Libya, in an attempt to promote dialogue between rival factions embroiled in the nation’s civil war.

Many political figures in the UK welcomed Powell’s latest appointment at a time of escalating international conflicts. Some expressed hopes that he will be able to help British authorities forge a positive relationship with Donald Trump when he takes over as US president in January.

However, Powell faced criticism for his role in the UK government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq two decades ago, and for later promoting the need to engage in dialogue with extremist groups. In 2014, at the height of Daesh’s bloody occupation of large swaths of Iraq and Syria, he argued that UK authorities should open channels of communication with them.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Powell’s experience of negotiating the Northern Ireland peace agreement and his other work related to some of the world’s most complex conflicts make him “uniquely qualified to advise the government on tackling the challenges ahead, and engage with counterparts across the globe to protect and advance UK interests.”

Powell said he was honored to be given the role at a time when “national security, international relations and domestic policies are so interconnected.”

Topics: Jonathan Powell Tony blair Iraq war

Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says

Updated 09 November 2024
AP
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Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says

  • Trump's transition team have yet to sign agreements required by the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and to limit and disclose private donations
  • The delay is holding up the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for potentially hundreds of Trump administration national security appointees
Updated 09 November 2024
AP

WASHINGTON: A good-governance group is warning of severe consequences if President-elect Donald Trump continues to steer clear of formal transition planning with the Biden administration — inaction that it says is already limiting the federal government’s ability to provide security clearances and briefings to the incoming administration.
Without the planning, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, “it would not be possible” to “be ready to govern on day one.”
The president-elect’s transition is being led by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. They said last month that they expected to sign agreements beginning the formal transition process with the Biden White House and the General Services Administration, which acts essentially as the federal government’s landlord.
But those agreements are still unsigned, and the pressure is beginning to mount.
The delay is holding up the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for potentially hundreds of Trump administration national security appointees. That could limit the staff who could work on sensitive information by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
It also means Trump appointees can’t yet access federal facilities, documents and personnel to prepare for taking office.
The agreements are required by the Presidential Transition Act, which was enacted in 2022. They mandate that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and to limit and disclose private donations.
In that act, Congress set deadlines of Sept. 1 for the GSA agreement and Oct. 1 for the White House agreement, in an effort to ensure that incoming administrations are prepared to govern when they enter office. Both deadlines have long since come and gone.
Stier, whose organization works with candidates and incumbents on transitions, said on a call with reporters on Friday that a new administration “walks in with the responsibility of taking over the most complex operation on the planet.”
“In order to do that effectively, they absolutely need to have done a lot of prework,” he said, adding that Trump’s team “has approached this in a, frankly, different way than any other prior transition has.”
“They have, up until now, walked past all of the tradition and, we believe, vital agreements with the federal government,” Stier said.
In a statement this week, Lutnick and McMahon said Trump was “selecting personnel to serve our nation under his leadership and enact policies that make the life of Americans affordable, safe, and secure.” They didn’t mention signing agreements to begin the transition.
A person familiar with the matter said that the congressionally mandated ethics disclosures and contribution limits were factors in the hesitance to sign the agreements.
Trump transition spokesperson Brian Hughes said Friday that the team’s “lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”
“We will update you once a decision is made,” Hughes said.
The Trump team’s reluctance has persisted despite Biden’s White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, reaching out to Lutnick and McMahon to reiterate the important role the agreements with the Biden administration and GSA play in beginning a presidential transition.
“We’re here to assist. We want to have a peaceful transition of power,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “We want to make sure they have what they need.”
The unorthodox approach to the presidential transition process recalls the period immediately after Trump’s Election Day victory in 2016. Days later, the president-elect fired the head of his transition team, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and tossed out a transition playbook he’d been compiling.
But Stier said that, even then, Trump’s team had signed the initial agreements that allowed the transition to get started — something that hasn’t happened this time.
“The story’s not finished. But they’re late,” he said. “And even if they manage to get these agreements in now, they’re late in getting those done.”

Topics: US Election 2024 Donald Trump Partnership for Public Service Howard Lutnick Linda McMahon

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50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals

Updated 09 November 2024
AFP
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50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals

  • The statement also condemned nations which “knowingly” allow those responsible for ransomware attacks to operate from
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP

UN: The World Health Organization and some 50 countries issued a warning Friday at the United Nations about the rise of ransomware attacks against hospitals, with the United States specifically blaming Russia.
Ransomware is a type of digital blackmail in which hackers encrypt the data of victims — individuals, companies or institutions — and demand money as a “ransom” in order to restore it.
Such attacks on hospitals “can be issues of life and death,” according to WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who addressed the UN Security Council during a meeting Friday called by the United States.
“Surveys have shown that attacks on the health care sector have increased in both scale and frequency,” Ghebreyesus said, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation to combat them.
“Cybercrime, including ransomware, poses a serious threat to international security,” he added, calling on the Security Council to consider it as such.
A joint statement co-signed by over 50 countries — including South Korea, Ukraine, Japan, Argentina, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — offered a similar warning.
“These attacks pose direct threats to public safety and endanger human lives by delaying critical health care services, cause significant economic harm, and can pose a threat to international peace and security,” read the statement, shared by US Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger.
The statement also condemned nations which “knowingly” allow those responsible for ransomware attacks to operate from.
At the meeting, Neuberger directly called out Moscow, saying: “Some states — most notably Russia — continue to allow ransomware actors to operate from their territory with impunity.”
France and South Korea also pointed the finger at North Korea.
Russia defended itself by claiming the Security Council was not the appropriate forum to address cybercrime.
“We believe that today’s meeting can hardly be deemed a reasonable use of the Council’s time and resources,” said Russian ambassador Vassili Nebenzia.
“If our Western colleagues wish to discuss the security of health care facilities,” he continued, “they should agree in the Security Council upon specific steps to stop the horrific... attacks by Israel on hospitals in the Gaza Strip.”

Topics: ransomware hospitals

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China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

Updated 09 November 2024
Reuters
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China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

  • Laws aimed at reinforcing Philippine rights to territory, resources
  • China unlikely to recognize laws, senator says
Updated 09 November 2024
Reuters

BEIJING/MANILA: China summoned the Philippines’ ambassador on Friday to express its objection to two new laws in the Southeast Asian nation asserting maritime rights and sovereignty over disputed areas of the South China Sea, its foreign ministry said.
China made “solemn representations” to the ambassador shortly after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act into law to strengthen his country’s maritime claims and bolster its territorial integrity.
The Maritime Zones law “illegally includes most of China’s Huangyan Island and Nansha Islands and related maritime areas in the Philippines’ maritime zones,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, using the Chinese names for Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands respectively.
Beijing has rejected a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims over the South China Sea had no legal basis, in a case that was brought by Manila. The United States, a Philippine ally, backs the court’s ruling.
Marcos said the two laws he signed, which define maritime entitlements and set designated sea lanes and air routes, were a demonstration of commitment to uphold the international rules-based order, and protect Manila’s rights to exploit resources peacefully in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
“Our people, especially our fisher folk, should be able to pursue their livelihood free from uncertainty and harassment,” Marcos said. “We must be able to harness mineral and energy resources in our sea bed.”
But Beijing said the laws were a “serious infringement” of its claims over the contested areas.
“China urges the Philippine side to effectively respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, to immediately stop taking any unilateral actions that may lead to the widening of the dispute and complicate the situation,” Mao said.
China, which also has sovereignty disputes with the other countries in the region, has enacted domestic laws covering the South China Sea, such as a coast guard law in 2021 that allows it to detain foreigners suspected of trespassing.
Beijing, which uses an armada of coast guard ships to assert its claims, routinely accuses vessels of trespassing in areas of the South China Sea that fall inside the EEZs of its neighbors, and has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines in the past year.
Philippine officials acknowledged the challenges they face in implementing the new laws, with one author, Senator Francis Tolentino, saying he did not expect a reduction in tensions.
“China will not recognize these, but the imprimatur that we’ll be getting from the international community would strengthen our position,” Tolentino told a press conference.
The United States on Friday backed the Philippines.
“The passage of the Maritime Zones Act by the Philippines is a routine matter and further clarifies Philippine maritime law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Latest updates

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