BBC news 2009-06-15 加文本

BBC 2009-06-15


Download Audio

Michael Axworthy.

One of America’s most senior generals, and the man who’s in charge of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has given a great massacement to the state of affairs in the lack of those countries. General David P says the situation has worsened over the past two years and will become more difficult once what he calls the sanctuaries and safe havens of militants are targeted by US forces.

You can see the very clear cycle here because of the weather and the winner and you can see that past week was the highest level of security incidents in Afghanistan’s history, and that enlisted that post-liberation history. You can see how it goes up during the summer, comes downer in the winter months then goes up and down again. This down right here by the way, was wandering harvesting the poppy, but again, there are some tough months ahead. Some of this will go up because we are going to go after the sanctuaries and safe havens as we must.

So does the Afghan government agree with General P. ZT is Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United Nations.

General P in this position to assist the reason for the increasing access recently. But at the same time I think there maybe another of other reasons for this, including the fact that the Taliban were possibly emboldened by this latest s. And the time begin after a number of these in Swat and some other parts of the tribal area. It’s also important to see that the Taliban might have benefited from the gap between promised reinforcement of the force by President Obama and the real enforcement that is going to take place. In addition, I think we all were just before the election in Afghanistan and the Taliban intended to try to distract their preparation for the election.

So who is right? Nicolas Smithdal is a fellow of the New America Foundation and a writer on Afghanistan. And he gave us his view.

General P’s assessment is pretty spark on. In that, the insurgency in the southern part of Afghanistan has grabbed more territory. It’s more violent in the east. It has up all over the country. And I think this another peace to what General P said today. I think that is they are trying to tempt their speculations all of it. The Obama administration had has certainly shifted its focus in devoted a great amount of time, energy, resources and personnel to Afghanistan. General P’s statement today were to suggest the American people, look, this is not going to turn around in the next 2 or 3 months. There is a much much bigger and longer fight ahead.

But why is it such a long and big fight given the amount of troops. They are throwing at this. It assumed that that would actually deal with some of its founders.

Well, you would think so. But, you know, as ours entered the great, the Soviet Union, the British army from what was previously India. No one has been able to subdue these areas. I mean, the Taliban is coming the latest iteration of resistance to outside authority. These P have been fighting against form, invaders, conquers, whatever you want to call them. Thousands are here. This is kind of this is part of their DNA, part of their makeup.

So is General P suggesting that actually all the troops searching may not be enough?

Like I said, I don’t think that he’s quite going there, but I do think he’s trying to temper expectations. I do, he shoot a couple of grass today at this seminar where he was speaking where he made his statements, that we are showing the spike in US casualties, the time of the surge in Iraq. And I think what he is trying to suggest is that, look, just because we are sending all these troops doesn’t mean that there are gonna be casualties and doesn’t mean that American, young Americans are gonna die.

But is this a message to the Obama administration, to the wider US public? I mean, who is he trying to get .. to ?

I think he is said it to the US public certainly. I think that the message is coming from the Obama administration, probably. P was saying that today that in Iraq, you know, that they were working very very closely. He was working very closely with B. In Iraq and I think that right now, as the head of S, he’s working very closely with S counterparts. So I think that US military, US power is on the same page here. But I do think this is for public consumption.