NATO Leaders

Source: news.yahoo.com --- 6 days ago
NORFOLK Globalization. Failed governments. Urbanization. Terrorism. Huge, thorny issues, with effects that are impossible to predict, but nations will have to address them nonetheless. Senior military Leaders from NATO's 26 member nations are gathering in town this week to imagine these sorts ... ...

Source: www.cnn.com --- 6 days ago
Local security forces and coalition soldiers in western Afghanistan killed several insurgents Thursday in what the NATO command called a "successful operation against high-priority Taliban targets." ...

Source: www.nytimes.com --- 6 days ago
U.S. and Afghan special forces killed two key tribal Leaders and a number of their followers in western Afghanistan in a joint airborne operation Wednesday, officials said. ...

Source: technorati.com --- 6 days ago
U.S. and Afghan special forces killed two key tribal Leaders and a number of their followers in western Afghanistan in a joint airborne operation Wednesday, officials said. ...

Source: www.janes.com --- 16 days ago
NATO members have pledged just 1,000 extra troops for Afghanistan ...

Source: www.topix.com --- 8 days ago
Polish President Lech Kaczynski methere Monday with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to discuss Ukraine's aspirations to EU and NATO, energy policy and political developments in Ukraine. ...

Source: edition.cnn.com --- 6 days ago
Local security forces and coalition soldiers killed two Taliban Leaders and several other insurgents Thursday in western Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force has said. ...

Source: www.cnn.com --- 6 days ago
Local security forces and coalition soldiers killed two Taliban Leaders and several other insurgents Thursday in western Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. ...

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com --- 8 days ago
A New Strategy for a New World Senator Barack Obama As Prepared For Delivery Washington, D.C. ** WATCH VIDEO BELOW ** Sixty-one years ago, George Marshall announced the plan that would come to bear his name. Much of Europe lay in ruins. The United States faced a powerful and ideological enemy intent on world domination. This menace was magnified by the recently discovered capability to destroy life on an unimaginable scale. The Soviet Union didn't yet have an atomic bomb, but before long it would. The challenge facing the greatest generation of Americans - the generation that had vanquished fascism on the battlefield - was how to contain this threat while extending freedom's frontiers. Leaders like Truman and Acheson, Kennan and Marshall, knew that there was no single decisive blow that could be struck for freedom. We needed a new overarching strategy to meet the challenges of a new and dangerous world. Such a strategy would join overwhelming military strength with sound judgment. It would shape events not just through military force, but through the force of our ideas; through economic power, intelligence and diplomacy. It would support strong allies that freely shared our ideals of liberty and democracy; open markets and the rule of law. It would foster new international institutions like the United Nations, NATO, and the World Bank, and focus on every corner of the globe. It was a strategy that saw clearly the world's dangers, ...

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com --- 4 days ago
A few hours into his journey to the two key lands occupied by American troops, Barack Obama is feeling the love. Indeed, it seems as if Leaders in both Iraq and Afghanistan are looking for some change they can believe in. As I reported for The Media Consortium , on the eve of Obama's senatorial fact-finding mission to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Afghan ambassador to the U.S. issued a plea for more U.S. troops in his country. Ambassador Said Jawad 's request, delivered with a sense of urgency in a Washington, D.C., forum, vindicated Obama's long-held contention that the U.S. invasion of Iraq served only to divert attention and resources from the true front lines in the fight against terrorism, which the Democratic presidential candidate locates in Afghanistan. Last week, Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times advocating the redeployment of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. The current capacity of U.S. forces is inadequate, Jawad asserted, noting the recent attack by the Taliban on a U.S. Army outpost that left nine Americans dead. As for our European allies, Jawad said, "The NATO forces are not fighting as hard as they should." The concern of most Afghans, Jawad said, was not that the U.S. was on their land, but whether the U.S. would stay long enough for the nation to build institutions capable of serving and protecting the people. Implicit in his statement was the belief of many Afghans that the U.S. will abandon their nati ...

Source: www.moore.house.gov --- 34 days ago
Met with NATO Leaders, Petraeus to discuss international security. Released on 6/3/2008. ...

Source: www.charlotte.com --- 3 days ago
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks Sunday with its Western-backed leader and vowed to pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if elected, an Afghan official said. On the second day of an international tour designed to burnish his foreign policy credentials, Illinois Sen. Obama and a pair of colleagues held two hours of talks with President Hamid Karzai at his palace in the capital. Obama has chided Karzai for not doing more to build confidence in his government, which remains weak after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. He made no public comment after the meeting, but said in a written statement that his main purpose was to see U.S troops, thank them for their "extraordinary service" and let them know the United States is proud of them. Obama said he and his colleagues were talking to military and diplomatic Leaders, and Afghanistan's Leaders about whether the U.S. has the right strategy and resources to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida. "Our message to the Afghan government is this: We want a strong partnership based on 'more for more' - more resources from the United States and NATO, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people," Obama and Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a joint statement. "We need a sense of urgency and determination. "We need urgency because the threat from the Taliban and al-Qaida is grow ...

Source: www.charlotte.com --- 21 days ago
Grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, President Bush promised Wednesday to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan by year's end. He conceded that June was a "tough month," in fact, the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began. "One reason why there have been more deaths is because our troops are taking the fight to a tough enemy, an enemy who doesn't like our presence there because they don't like the idea of America denying safe haven (to terrorists)," Bush told reporters. "Of course there's going to be resistance." Bush said it was a tough month too for the Taliban. But the once-toppled Islamist regime in Afghanistan has now rebounded with deadly force. More U.S. and NATO troops have died in the past two months in Afghanistan than in Iraq, a place with triple the number of U.S. and coalition forces. In June, 28 U.S. troops died in Afghanistan. That was the highest monthly total of the entire war, which began in October 2001. For the full U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan the death toll was 46, also the highest of the war. Bush confronted the grim direction of the Afghanistan conflict during a sun-splashed Rose Garden appearance. The president used the event to tout his agenda for an upcoming Group of Eight meeting in Japan with world Leaders, then addressed Iran, climate change and gasoline prices in a short Q&A session with reporters. The Pentagon predicts the pace of attacks in Afghanis ...

Source: www.charlotte.com --- 16 days ago
Faced with growing international pressure, the Pentagon is changing its policy on cluster bombs and plans to reduce the danger of unexploded munitions in the deadly explosives. The policy shift, which is outlined in a three-page memo signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, would require that after 2018, more than 99 percent of the bomblets in a cluster bomb must detonate. Limiting the amount of live munitions left on the battlefield would lessen the danger to innocent civilians who have been killed or severely injured when they accidentally detonate the bombs. Also, by next June the Defense Department will begin to reduce its inventory of cluster bombs that do not meet the new safety requirements. The new Defense Department plan comes more than a month after 111 nations, including many of America's key NATO partners, adopted a treaty outlawing all current designs of cluster munitions. The agreement also required that stockpiles be destroyed within eight years. Opponents have complained that the Pentagon has moved too slowly to reduce the cluster munitions from its inventory. Cluster bombs scatter hundreds of smaller explosives over a large area, where those bomblets can sit for years until they are disturbed and explode. U.S. Leaders boycotted the May talks, as did Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan, all leading cluster bomb makers who cite the military value of the deadly explosives. At the time, Cmdr. Bob Mehal, a Penta ...

Source: www.charlotte.com --- 14 days ago
Special Forces soldiers have been able to inflict significant damage to the Taliban's leadership, forcing them to resort to terrorist-style attacks, a Special Forces commander with two combat tours in Afghanistan said Wednesday. Col. Christopher K. Haas, who turns over command of the Fort Bragg-based 3rd Special Forces Group Thursday, said in the past two years Special Forces soldiers have killed several key senior and midlevel Leaders. They include Mullah Dadullah, who commanded Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan and was killed in a May 2007 raid by NATO and Afghan forces in Helmand Province. "The Taliban continue to rely on these spectacular attacks which are high visibility and attempt to attract media attention to the fact that the insurgency can still operate inside Afghanistan on a limited basis," Haas said. Monday's suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed 41 people was the deadliest attack in the capital since 2001. But Haas said the Taliban is not experiencing similar success in the villages and at the provincial level where Special Forces soldiers routinely operate. "The paramilitary arm of this organization is losing ground and has suffered tactical defeat after tactical defeat," Haas said. "Media images of 15 or 20 insurgents operating in Afghanistan does not represent an effective force against Special Forces soldiers or our NATO allies. "Unfortunately, such portrayals are routinely misinterprete ...

Source: www.charlotte.com --- 20 days ago
The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October, Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday. Military Leaders as recently as Wednesday stressed the need for additional troops in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has repeatedly praised the work of the 24th MEU in fighting Taliban militants in Helmand Province. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, has repeatedly said he did not intend to extend or replace the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, calling their deployment there an extraordinary, one-time effort to help tamp down the increasing violence in the south. Asked about the possibility of an extension in early May, Gates said he would "be loath to do that." He added that "no one has suggested even the possibility of extending that rotation." Lapan said Thursday that commanders in Afghanistan asked that the Marines stay longer. The Pentagon announced in January that the MEU was being ordered to Afghanistan, largely because efforts to press other NATO nations to increase their troop levels at the time had failed. Commanders faced with increasing violence have said they need at least 7,500 more troops in Afghanistan. And President Bush and defense off ...

Source: www.charlotte.com --- 20 days ago
The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 North Carolina-based Marines now serving in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and return home to Camp Lejeune in early November rather than October, Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday. Military Leaders as recently as Wednesday stressed the need for additional troops in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has repeatedly praised the work of the 24th MEU in fighting Taliban militants in Helmand Province. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, has repeatedly said he did not intend to extend or replace the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, calling their deployment there an extraordinary, one-time effort to help tamp down the increasing violence in the south. Asked about the possibility of an extension in early May, Gates said he would "be loathe to do that." He added that "no one has suggested even the possibility of extending that rotation." Lapan said Thursday that commanders in Afghanistan asked that the Marines stay longer. The Pentagon announced in January that the MEU was being ordered to Afghanistan, largely because efforts to press other NATO nations to increase their troop levels at the time had failed. Commanders faced with increasing violence have said they need at least 7,500 more troop ...