The new Labour leader (PvdA) Job Cohen keeps the option open to support a police training mission to Uruzgan in Afghanistan. Cohen is also ready to talk about the protection force to accompany the police mission.

Cohen made these remarks in a Sunday evening televised interview with the KRO.

It is again a curious turn of events in the debate around the Dutch role in Afghanistan. Barely two months ago the CDA/ PvdA cabinet fell over an extended military mission in Uruzgan in line with Nato proposals.

A compromise, including a police training mission, was within crasp, but former party leader Wouter Bos refused further talks. The end of of Cabinet Balkenende IV was the result.

Foreign minister Verhagen expressed astonishment on this PvdA move. “If this is the present PvdA position, I do not understand why the PvdA walked out of the cabinet, ” said Verhagen to Het Parool.

By Daan Diederiks

See also >> | Dutchnews.nl | Labour open for Afghanistan police training mission: Cohen

See also >> | NRC- Handelsblad | PvdA sluit politiemissie Afghanistan niet uit

See also >> | Het Parool | Verhagen begrijpt niets meer van PvdA

See also >> | Vrij Nederland | Ko Colijn | Perverse redenering om de snor te drukken

See also >> | Cartoon courtesy | Siegfried Woldhek

Two Dutch soldiers were killed in an explosion caused by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Saturday, the defence ministry has confirmed.

The two men, aged 29 and 23, were killed during a military operation, the ministry said.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Two Dutch soldiers killed in Afghanistan by roadside bomb.

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Labour leader Wouter Bos has accused Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop of withholding critical information that could have prevented the fall of the cabinet in February over Labour's refusal to extend the military mission in Afghanistan.

Mr Bos made the accusation during a reconstruction, televised on Friday, of the fall of the fourth government of Christian Democrat Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkendende. Mr Bos describes Mr Van Middelkoop's decision to withhold the information as “irresponsible.”

Read more >> | Defence minister withheld Uruzgan compromise | Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Dutch troops may well still be on active duty in Afghanistan in 2011 because it is going to take longer to complete the withdrawal than planned, defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop told a tv talk show on Wednesday evening.

The Netherlands is due to begin removing its1,800 soldiers and support staff in August.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Dutch troops take longer to leave Uruzgan.

TALIBAN commanders have revealed that hundreds of insurgents have been trained in Iran to kill Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The commanders said they had learnt to mount complex ambushes and lay improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for most of the deaths of British troops in Helmand province.

The accounts of two commanders, in interviews with The Sunday Times, are the first descriptions of training of the Taliban in Iran.

According to the commanders, Iranian officials paid them to attend three-month courses during the winter.

Read more Iranians train Taliban to use roadside bombs – Times Online.

The Dutch army has been operating as part of Nato in a remote and unruly part of Afghanistan since 2006. Fighting against the Taliban has been heavy at times. Twenty-one Dutch lives have been lost, out of about 1,800 men and women.

The Dutch were supposed to have been relieved by troops from a Nato partner in 2008. No one volunteered. So their mission was extended for another two years. But now the Social Democrats in the Dutch coalition government have declared that enough is enough. The Dutch troops will have to come home. Since the Christian Democrats do not agree, the government has fallen.

This is highly inconvenient for President Barack Obama, who needs all the help he can get in Afghanistan, even from small allies, if only for political reasons. To many Americans, especially of the neoconservative persuasion, Dutch behaviour might confirm all their suspicions about perfidious Europeans, addicted to material comforts, while remaining childishly dependent on US military protection. When the going gets tough, they argue, the Europeans bow out.

By Ian Buruma

Read more >> | The Guardian Online – The Dutch retreat

Dutch forces are due to pull out of their leading role in Uruzgan this summer. It is a political decision. “There is basic security but it is fragile,” says the head of the armed forces Commander Peter van Uhm.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Dutch general says Netherlands replaceable in Afghanistan.

The collapse of the Dutch government over keeping troops in Afghanistan could lead to other countries pulling out of NATO’s mission.
The Netherlands has done neither the European Union nor the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation any favours. The collapse of the coalition government – ostensibly over keeping troops in Afghanistan – creates problems far outside the confines of Dutch politics.

It is yet another example of how vulnerable European politics are to the vicissitudes of domestic electoral politics.

Most embarrassingly for its European allies, the Netherlands’ decision not to extend its participation in NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan coincides with a massive NATO offensive in the south of the country.

It also comes barely a month after European countries had promised US President Barack Obama that they would be sending more than 5,000 extra troops to Afghanistan. At a conference in London in January, the European allies endorsed the US’s new strategy, which envisages sending tens of thousands of extra troops.

Read more >> | Dutch disruption leaves their partners in the lurch  |  Policies  |  EU governance  |  Council of Ministers | European Voice.

Former Nato secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer regrets the end of the Dutch military mission in Uruzgan. He also blames Nato for not getting across how the Afghanistan deployment relates to the fight against terrorism.

It hurts Jaap de Hoop Scheffer that the Netherlands will be the first Nato country to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan. Bad for the Netherlands, bad for Nato and only good for the Taliban, De Hoop Scheffer said in an interview with NRC Handelsblad on Tuesday

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Ex-Nato chief: \’The Netherlands will feel the effects\’.

After the collapse of its coalition cabinet, the Netherlands is set to withdraw its 2,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. That decision is an embarrassment to the Netherlands, to NATO, and to Washington at a moment when President Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy faces a crucial test.

Read more >> | The New York Times Editorial feb. 24 2010 – Dutch Retreat

A spokesman for the Islamist movement has said the Dutch have made a “very good decision” to retreat from Uruzgan.

It is “right and truthful the Dutch have now come to realise they should not sacrifice their lives to American goals”, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesperson for the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, told NRC Handelsblad in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Features – Taliban happy to see Dutch leave.

last-ditch effort to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan brought down the governing coalition in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war is increasingly at risk.

“If the Dutch go, which is the implication of all this, that could open the floodgates for other Europeans to say, ‘The Dutch are going, we can go, too,’ ” said Julian Lindley-French, professor of defense strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. “The implications are that the U.S. and the British are going to take on more of the load.”

The collapse of the Dutch government comes as the Obama administration continues to struggle to get European allies to commit more troops to Afghanistan to bolster its attempts to win back the country from a resurgent Taliban. President Obama has made the Afghan war a cornerstone of his foreign policy and, after months of debate, committed tens of thousands more American troops to the effort.

Read more >> | The New York Times

he Dutch government collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning over Labour’s insistence that the Netherlands pull out of Afghanistan this year.

After two days of intensive talks and a bitter parliamentary debate, it had become increasingly clear the gulf between prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and deputy prime minister Wouter Bos was too great to bridge.

Labour leader Bos stated earlier this week that he wanted a decision on Nato’s request to the Netherlands to stay in Afghanistan at Friday’s cabinet meeting. And that decision would have to be a no, he said repeatedly.

Balkenende said he wanted to keep all options open and was sticking to the March 1 deadline.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Dutch government collapses over Afghanistan

See also >> | Dutch cabinet, Balkenende’s fourth, collapses – NRC-Hamdelsblad

See also >> | Dutch government falls over Afghanistan mission

rime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and deputy premier Wouter Bos will debate the future of the Dutch mission in Afghanistan in parliament this afternoon, as speculation grows that the cabinet is about to collapse.

The debate was called by Socialist Party leader Agnes Kant, who said she wanted to get to the bottom of the mixed messages being sent out by ministers.

Labour party leader Wouter Bos said on Wednesday he will categorically not support any extension to the Dutch mission in Afghanistan, despite the formal request by Nato. And he wants minister to say a final no to Nato after Friday’s cabinet meeting.

But Balkenende wants Dutch soldiers to stay on past August to train local forces. ‘All options are open,’ the Christian Democratic party leader said.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Emergency debate on Afghanistan today

he future of the coalition government is in doubt on Thursday morning, after Labour leader and deputy prime minister Wouter Bos said he would definitely not support a continuation of the Dutch mission in Afghanistan, despite a Nato request.

Newspapers are united that the government is in trouble. ‘The cabinet is in crisis, the collapse nears’ is the headline in the Telegraaf following yesterday’s ministerial meeting at which Bos restated his position.

‘The last solider must have left Uruzgan at the end of the year. We are keeping our promise to the man in the street,’ Bos told reporters after the meeting.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Cabinet in crisis over Afghanistan

an Peter Balkenende has enough support in parliament to stay in office, but his problems are far from over.

For the first time in Dutch parliamentary history on Tuesday, a prime minister was confronted with a motion of no confidence that targeted him personally. Opposition members of parliament accused Jan Peter Balkenende of undermining public trust in the government.

The Christian democratic prime minister survived the motion though, as a majority of the lower house still supports him: the motion was rejected 96 to 40.

Tuesday’s parliamentary debate over the findings of a special committee that investigated the reasoning behind the Dutch support for the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was special for another reason. The meeting closed the book on the issue after seven years, sixteen debates and ten motions that asked for an inquiry into the Dutch involvement and the Davids report that resulted from it.

Read more >> | NRC- Handelsblad International

n his quest to stabilize his country, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, dressed in white robes, arrived last week in Mecca on what can only be called a diplomatic pilgrimage. Although Karzai undoubtedly spent time praying at Islam’s holiest site, his mission was intended to prove more than his piety.

So what diplomatic or financial gain was Karzai seeking? Why travel to Saudi Arabia at the very moment that US President Barack Obama’s military surge has become operational? Can Saudi Arabia play a serious role in resolving his country’s increasingly bloody conflict?

By Mai Yamani

Read more >> | The Kingdom and the Afghan Chaos – Project Syndicate

abour leader Wouter Bos has said a final no to any further role for Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan, forcing a potential cabinet crisis.

Nato has asked the Netherlands to stay past the August 2010 deadline in a training role. But, after a meeting with other ministers on Wednesday morning, Bos said Labour would definitely oppose an extension to the Dutch mission at Friday’s cabinet meeting.

Bos said his no vote is keeping the Labour party’s promise to voters. ‘That means there must be a negative response to Nato’s request. That decision can be taken on Friday,’ he said.

Bos refused to say if the decision meant the cabinet was close to collapse.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Labour says final 'no' to Afghanistan

conflict has again erupted in the Dutch governing coalition over the Afghanistan mission.

The Dutch governing coalition partners, Christian democrat CDA and Labour, have always disagreed on the best approach for Afghanistan and the role of the Dutch military there. Following an official request by Nato to extend the Dutch deployment in the war-torn country, two ministers are now involved in a public quarrel. Finance minister Wouter Bos and foreign affairs minister Maxime Verhagen have accused each other of disregard for the cabinet’s position on the matter.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Nato troop request sparks political row

oreign minister Maxime Verhagen and deputy prime minister Wouter Bos appear to be heading for a showdown over Nato’s call for the Netherlands to stay longer in Afghanistan.

Bos, who is leader of the Labour party, and the Christian Democrat Verhagen both outlined their position on different tv talk shows on Thursday night.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Ministers clash over Nato Afghanistan letter

he Dutch government is divided about extending its military presence in Afghanistan. Sending instructors to train Afghan soldiers is an option under consideration. But training and fighting go hand in hand.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Features – Training Afghan soldiers can be a violent endeavour

ato has to play a bigger role in the world by collaborating with countries outside the alliance, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen told NRC Handelsblad. “Security is unimaginable without partners.”

Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen is the first to admit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has problems. For years, the alliance has underestimated the complexity of war and now it is also facing financial issues.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Features – Nato chief: Afghanistan is only the beginning

hristian Democrat and Labour MPs both support a suggestion by a Nato chief that Dutch soldiers remain in Afghanistan to train local troops, most newspapers report on Monday.

Labour has always been adamant that the Netherlands must start pulling out its forces in August, despite mounting pressure from the US and other allies for the Dutch to stay.

Read more >> | DutchNews.nl – Nato suggests Afghan training role

inisters have reached a compromise on extending the Dutch mission in Afghanistan past the August deadline, magazine Elsevier reports on its website, quoting cabinet sources.

The magazine says the proposal, which involves staying in Afghanistan with a much smaller force, will be discussed by the full cabinet on Friday.

DutchNews.nl – Cabinet reaches compromise on Afghanistan

he US envoy to NATO has urged the Netherlands to keep its troops in volatile southern Afghanistan, saying that 2010 is a pivotal year for the international military effort there.

Ambassador Ivo Daalder praised Dutch troops for their work in Uruzgan province helping to improve the lives of some 360,000 people, and urged the government not to pull forces out just as they are having an impact.

Read more >> | AFP Google News

eads of NATO member states are fond of talking about when the alliance might begin to withdraw from Afghanistan. But a draft communiqué ahead of the conference in London makes it clear: NATO will stay in the war-torn country for years to come. It may also start paying Taliban fighters to lay down their arms.

Read more >> | Der Spiegel International

or thirty years Afghanistan has cast a long, dark shadow over world events, but it has also been marked by pivotal moments that could have brought peace and changed world history.

By Ahmed Rashid

Read more >> | A Deal with the Taliban? – The New York Review of Books

ool poker-players, we are tempted to believe, only raise or fold: they only increase their bet or leave the game. Calling, making the minimum bet to stay, suggests that you can’t calculate the odds or face losing the pot, and that the other players are intimidating you. Calling is for children. Real men and women don’t want to call in Afghanistan: they want to dramatically increase troops and expenditure, defeat the Taliban, and leave. Or they just want to leave. Both sides—the disciples of the surge and the apostles of withdrawal—therefore found some satisfaction in one passage in President Obama’s speech at West Point on December 1:

I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.

But the rest left them uneasy. This was not, as they might have imagined, because he was lurching between two contradictory doctrines of increase and withdrawal, but because the rest of his speech argued for a radically different strategy—a call strategy—which is about neither surge nor exit but about a much-reduced and longer-term presence in the country. The President did not make this explicit. But this will almost certainly be the long-term strategy of the US and its allies. And he has with remarkable courage and scrupulousness articulated the premises that lead to this conclusion. First, however, it is necessary to summarize the history of our involvement and the conventional policies that have long favored surge and exit.

By Rory Stewart

Read more | Afghanistan: What Could Work – The New York Review of Books

S president Obama recently announced a major troop buildup in Afghanistan and other Nato members will likewise be supplying more troops. Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen spoke with Spiegel about the ‘warlike’ conditions in Afghanistan, how long Nato will stay and whether Russia might come to the alliance’s aid.

An interview with the Nato Sec. Gen Rasmussen.

Read more | NRC- Handelsblad/ Der Spiegel

he former Nato Commander to southern Afghanistan, the Dutch Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif conducted a press briefing at the Pentagon to discuss his experiences leading 40,000 coalition troops in southern Afghanistan from November 2008-November 2009.

See also | C-Span Pentagon briefing

“ot only scientists and environmental activists call for action on climate change, but also military leaders understand that our common security hangs in the balance,” said President Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” has been seen as a means of boosting international climate talks.

In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, President Obama stressed the importance of confronting climate change:

“There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement – all of which will fuel more conflict for decades,” and then he drew attention to the question of security in the climate problem:

“It is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action – it’s military leaders in my own country and others who understand that our common security hangs in the balance.”

Read on | CPO15 Copenhagen

See also | The White House (Obama speech)

See also | Obama defends war as he picks up Nobel Peace Prize BBC News

ASHINGTON — On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminating about war. He had come from Arlington National Cemetery, where he had wandered among the chalky white tombstones of those who had fallen in the rugged mountains of Central Asia.

Read on | The New York Times

ERLIN – Afghanistan’s future does not look good. The Taliban are gaining military and political strength, and President Hamid Karzai is losing support at home and internationally due to his administration’s rampant corruption and the obvious fraud committed in his re-election. Weariness with the war is spreading in the United States, where President Barack Obama finds it difficult to decide about an increase in troops, as demanded by his own generals. European NATO members with troops in Afghanistan would prefer to withdraw them today rather than tomorrow.

The West seems to have lost its orientation in the Hindu Kush – that “graveyard of empires,” as it was called after the British disaster in January 1842, when only one man survived an expedition 16,000. What, many people are asking, is NATO really fighting for in Afghanistan?

Joschka Fischer

Read on | Project Syndicate – What Next in Afghanistan?

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he story of David Rohde, a New York Times reporter, kidnapped by the Taliban, who finally escaped.

he NATO defense ministers put pressure on the Dutch government to keep their troops in the Afghan province Uruzgan, despite a clear no from the Dutch parliament.

Read on in the two articles below and the White House debate on TPM media.

NRC- Handelsblad article | Dutch Afghanistan presence up in the air again

NYT article | NATO Defense Ministers Endorse Wider Afghan Effort

Senator Kerry on submitting more troops to Afghanistan in an unstable political situation with Karzai and election fraud. 18 oct. 2009

Obama praises President Karzai to restart elections. 20 oct. 2009

White House spokesperson Gibbs on criticism by former vice-president Cheney on “dithering” by president Obama. 22 oct. 2009

ccording to RNW correspondent Bernard Hammelburg Pakistan is playing a dangerous double game in Afghanistan by secretly supporting the Taliban.

fghan leader Karzai warned Pakistan that they will send in troops into Pakistan if the Taliban will keep on attacking from within Pakistan.

De Haag |

inister Verhagen van Buitenlandse Zaken steunt het Duitse plan om de Afghaanse politie met EU geld fors uit te breiden. “De politie is in Afghanistan de Achilleshiel”, aldus de minister vanmorgen in de Tweede Kamer.

De eerste opbouwfase van de Afghaanse politie is afgerond. Nu kan, volgens de minister, verdere ontplooing plaatsvinden. Opleiding van de Afghaanse politie wordt verzorgd door onder andere de EUPol, een speciale EU missie, met als doel een onafhabkelijke en professionele politie macht in Afghanistan op te bouwen.

Volgens de minister is er nu een bruggehoofd en kan verdere uitbreiding van opleidingen plaatsvinden. Nederland heeft hiertoe 2,7 miljoen Euro beschikbaar gesteld, die voornamelijk besteed worden aan politie kantoren, een opleidingscentrum en diverse checkpoints in Uruzgan, de Afghaanse provincie waar Nederland de Taliban bestrijdt. Er zijn op dit moment 700 agenten. De minister hoopt uiteindelijk 1300 agenten in Uruzgan de straat op te krijgen.

en geirriteerde minister van Binnenlandse zaken Guusje Ter Horst moest vanmorgen in de kamer erkennen, dat zij in een onlangs door de Nieuwe Revu gepubliceerd interview, niet had moeten zeggen dat zij de eerste minister was die over onderhandelen met de Taliban in het openbaar sprak.

Geert Wilders vroeg het debat aan naar aanleiding van een interview in de Nieuwe Revu, waarin zij sprak over het onderhandelen met de Taliban in Afghanistan, als zij ophouden met het plegen van aanslagen, de wapens neerlegt en wil onderhandelen, “dan moet dit kunnen”. Zij droeg hiermee het kabinetsbeleid uit, aldus de minister. Volgens Wilders is onderhandelen met terroristische organisaties altijd uitgesloten.

Minister Verhagen greep de gelegenheid aan nogmaals te herhalen dat Nederland niet met terroristen onderhandelt. De rode lijn wordt getrokken bij groeperingen die geweld propageren. In Afghanistan steunt de regering president Karzai in zijn wens de extremisten te willen losweken van de gematigden. Sommigen willen alleen onderhandelen als alle buitenlandse troepen zijn vertrokken. Anderen , zo’n 3000 Taliban, willen wel verzoenen na het afzweren van geweld.

Minister Verhagen nam afstand van de uitspraak van van Bommel (SP) als zou het “doodschieten” van de Taliban het doel zijn van de internationale troepen (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Deze uitspraak was volgens de minister “volstrekt misplaatst”.

wee NRC Handelsblad verslaggeefsters bezochten Afghanistan de afgelopen jaren. Hanneke Chin-a-Fo was twee maanden embed in Kamp- Holland in Uruzgan. Antoinette de Jong reisde de afgelopen 15 jaar regelmatig naar Afghanistan. De grote geo-politieke vraag voor de regio is of Pakistan uiteen valt en of de Verenigde Staten Iran aan gaat vallen, aldus Antoinette de Jong.

Beluister de uitzending:

lijven of vertrekken uit Uruzgan? Dat is de onmogelijke keuze die de Nederlandse regering de komende weken nu echt moet gaan maken.

De belangrijkste faktor in de keuze is de Taliban en de vraag of deze te temmen is. Stevent de Taliban op een overwinning af, dan kan je beter vertrekken. Is er de kans de Taliban door eliminatie en binding te beteugelen is, dan is dit verre te verkiezen.

Wat zijn de consequenties bij de terugkeer aan de macht van de Taliban? Het meest direct zullen de Afghanen dat zelf voelen. De regide Islam zal weer ingevoerd worden. Vrouwen en meisjes gaan terug naar het aanrecht en blijven ongeletterd. De Navo zal twistend uiteen vallen, het nucleaire Pakistan zal verder destabiliseren, Al Queda zal uit de grotten van Waziristan te voorschijn komen en succes claimen en dit met geweld verder willen exporteren om een militant Islam te verspreiden. Zij verkrijgen een enorme machtsbasis, die voor verdere instabiliteit in de hele regio, Iran/ Pakistan / Turkmenistan, met uitstraling naar het Midden-Oosten.

Als de Taliban te temmen zijn, dan kan dit allemaal vermeden worden. Bovendien kan het land zelf opgebouwd worden en zorgen voor stabiliteit in de regio. Volgens Navo en Amerikaanse zegsbronnen kan dit zeker een tiental jaren duren. Het voortzetten van deze politiek zou al een overwinning zijn. Alleen is dit realistisch.

Is het realistisch om te verwachten dat de Taliban, wat een zeer verscheiden gezelschap is, constructief mee gaat werken en/of verslagen kan worden, of op zijn minst teruggedrongen kan worden?

De belangrijkste faktor hierin zal de standvastigheid van de Navo en haar bondgenoten zijn. Is er onderlinge solidariteit en opofferingsgezindheid en wordt dit door de bevolking voldoende gesteund voor zo lange tijd.

Dit geeft nog geen antwoord op de vraag of de Taliban te beteugelen zijn. Maar niets doen en terugtrekken is geen aantrekkelijke optie.

Daan Diederiks

Linken

• Afghanistan at the Brink – Roger Cohen New York Times
• Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent Bolster Taliban – David Rohde New York Times

Pakistan is in crisis according to Brooking Institution professor Stephen Cohen. It even is a time bomb, according to Cohen in the Washington Post recently. Not only Pakistan, but together with Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan this corner of the world, loaded with nukes (Iran, Pakistan, India) is the most explosive. It is comparable with the situation in the beginning of the 20th century Balkans in Europe.

Sectarian terrorist and Taliban violence is destabilizing the region turning it to a potential time bomb. US leadership should revise its policy toward Pakistan. Not solely leaning on the military dictatorship, but pushing moderate civic society, according to Cohen, also on C- Span.

See Washington Journal C- Span.

NRC Handelsblad verslaggever Robert van de Roer praat met Tweede Kamerlid Arend Jan Boekestijn (VVD) over NRC Next, Afghanistan, martelingen en Joshua Livestro. Bovendien biedt Boekestijn zijn excuses aan voor de invasie in Irak.

Freelance Journalist David Axe was recently imbedded with NATO troops in southern Afghanistan in the area of Tarin Kowt, where approximately 3000 troops from the Netherlands and Australia are based at Kamp Holland. In this program, we learn about the reconstruction work of the Dutch-led NATO forces and hear from troops about a Taliban suicide bombing and the NATO response. We also see a memorial service for one of the Dutch troops who died in the suicide bombing.

Start the report: Afghanistan Vignette

See also David Axe website : War is Boring.

To view the C-Span report you need Real Video.

Strategic planner Thomas P.M. Barnett has advised US leaders on national security since the end of the Cold War. In this bracingly honest — and very funny — talk, Barnett outlines a solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. One half makes war, and the other half builds the peace that follows.

insdag tijdens het vragen uur probeerde SP kamerlid Harry van Bommel aan minister Kamp van defensie te ontlokken dat Nederland een “oorlog in rommelt”. Van Bommel verwijt de minister dat hij “de dingen niet bij de naam noemt.”

Bovendien meent van Bommel dat de acties die de Nederlandse militairen op dit moment in de Panjwayi- vallei in Kandahar tegen de Taliban ondernemen, tegen de afspraken zijn met de Tweede Kamer. Minister Kamp ontkende in alle toonaarden.

De minister zal nooit zeggen dat Nederland “in oorlog” is met de Taliban. “In oorlog zijn” is, behalve de term voor een geweldadige vorm van menselijk handelen, ook een jurridisch begrip. Een land kan alleen met een ander land “in oorlog” zijn, die ook nog eens officieel verklaard moet worden. De Taliban is geen land, maar een groep opstandelingen die dood en verderf zaaien onder alles dat enigzins modern is. Bij voorkeur snijden zij kelen door van leraren en te moderne vrouwen. Op verzoek van de Verenigde Naties, de Afghaanse regering en de Navo probeert Nederland met de bondgenoten ter plekke deze Taliban praktijken tegen te gaan.

Ommekeer Srebrenica

Na het debacle in Srebrenica realiseerde men in de nederlandse politiek dat de toestand in de wereld andere eisen stelde aan de krijgsmacht en de te voeren strategie. De krijgsmacht werd hervormd tot een expeditionair leger, dat zwaar bewapend over de hele wereld ingezet zou kunnen worden en zou kunnen opereren in “het hoogste geweldspectrum.”

De transformatie van de krijsmacht ging gepaard met nieuwe politieke doelstellingen. Een van de doelstellingen komt voort uit het ervarinsfeit dat economische en sociale ontwikkeling niet mogelijk is, zonder dat allereerst de situatie in een land of regio veilig is.

Veiligheid als voorwaarde voor ontwikkeling werd daarmee een hoofddoelstelling van buitenlands- en ontwikkelingsbeleid. De volgende fase is de daadwerkelijke hulp bij economische en sociale ontwikkeling, ingebed in “nation building” indien nodig.

Alle regeringswaardige partijen zoals het CDA, PvdA, VVD, D66 en anderen, stemden in met de beleidsnota’s die opeenvolgende ministers van defensie en buitenlandse zaken hierover aan de kamer voorlegden.

Besluit Uruzgan

Ook een partij als D66 schaarde zich achter dit beleid. Daarom was het in februari 2006 zo onbegrijpelijk dat Lousewies van der Laan en Bert Bakker ineens afhaakten toen het op daden aankwam in Afghanistan. Vooral Bert Bakker was altijd een steunpilaar van dit beleid geweest.

De brief van minister Kamp, op grond waarvan het parlement het besluit nam om naar Uruzgan te gaan, was geheel in lijn met de eerder geformulerde beleidsdoelstellingen. Nederland wilde gaan helpen bij de wederopbouw van Afghanistan, maar zou eerst voor veiligheid in Uruzgan moeten zorgen. Daartoe werd het leger er met groot materieel heen gestuurd. Volgens de brief zouden de eerste twee jaar zwaar worden. In eerste instantie zou er hierdoor van echte opbouw nog niet veel terecht komen. Eerst moest de Taliban uitgeschakkeld en moesten de “hearts and minds” van de bevolking gewonnen worden. De Tweede Kamer stemde hier met een ruime meerderheid van CDA, VVD en PvdA mee in.

Politicus in de marge

Daarom was wat van Bommel dinsdag in de kamer zei pure retoriek van een politicus in de marge. Ook hij weet namelijk donders goed wat er in die brief stond en hoe de discussie verlopen is. Hij zei:
“Het gaat erom dat deze missie door deze regering aan de Tweede Kamer is verkocht als wederopbouw missie. Wij zouden daar scholen bouwen. Wij zouden daar ziekenhuizen gaan bouwen. Wij zouden daar wegen gaan aanleggen. (..) Er is sprake van grootschalige inzet van grondtroepen en van gevechtsvliegtuigen en van gevechtshelicopters. Dat heeft helemaal niets te maken met wederopbouw, waarmee de Kamer had ingestemd, maar met oorlog voeren. “

Deze suggestie van van Bommel is pure onzin. De regering heeft de missie nooit verkocht als louter en alleen een opbouw missie. En minister Kamp heeft dat ook niet gedaan om heimelijk oorlog te voeren. D66 haaktte juist af, toen bleek dat de minister openlijk aangaf dat het gevaarlijk zou worden en dat van wederopbouw pas in een latere fase echt sprake zou zijn.

De regring voert het beleid uit dat is uitgestippeld en waarmee de meerderheid van de Kamer in volle bewustzijn heeft ingestemd. Alleen D66 en de SP niet. Deze partijen laten liever de Taliban weer de overhand krijgen of de Amerikanen het vuile werk opknappen, om zo de eigen handen in kinderlijke onschuld te kunnen wassen.

Dat heet politiek aanrommelen in de marge.

Daan Diederiks

AP Docs |

Aan de vooravond van de Navo top in Riga schreven de nederlandse premier Balkenende en zijn canadese collega Harper een artikel over de missie in Afghanistan.

Morgen zullen wij in Riga de regeringsleiders van de NAVO-landen ontmoeten. Wij zullen daar onze vastberadenheid en toewijding herbevestigen om in Afghanistan vrede en stabiliteit tot stand te brengen.

Canada en Nederland hebben militairen, ontwikkelingshulp en politieke betrokkenheid ingezet om de Afghaanse bevolking te helpen bij het zekerstellen van een betere toekomst. Wij doen dat samen met alle NAVO bondgenoten en elf partnerlanden van de NAVO. Het is geen gemakkelijke opdracht, maar wel een noodzakelijke.

De NAVO-top biedt ook gelegenheid om in herinnering te brengen waarom wij in Afghanistan zijn, wat tot dusverre is bereikt en wat er nog moet gebeuren om de NAVO-aanwezigheid tot een succes te maken.

AP Docs | Lees verder…

AP Research

Nederlands beleid ten aanzien van vredesmissies in het algemeen. Analyse naar aanleiding van een regeringsnotitie van april 2004.

Wat zijn speciale operaties?

Nederland zendt speciale eenheden uit op gevoelige en gevaarlijke missies. Volgens de Minister van Defensie gaat het hierbij niet om een “license to kill” zoals soms wel gesuggereerd wordt.

In het debat naar aanleiding van de commotie rond de verdachte marinier Erik O., eiste GroenLinks kamerlid Karimi dat de regering en de Kamer nadere afspraken maken over de wijze waarop de Kamer geinformeerd wordt over Speciale Operaties.

Volgens minister van Defensie Kamp is het zijn beleid om “de Kamer zo spoedig mogelijk te informeren, liefst vooraf en in de openbaarheid, maar in bijzondere gevallen achteraf en vertrouwelijk als dit noodzakelijk is.”

Het ‘toetsingskader’ regelt de verhouding tussen de kamer en de regering bij het zenden van Nederlandse militairen bij “internationale crisisbeheersingsoperaties”. Het beschrijft ook een aantal kriteria waaraan zo’n missie moet voldoen.