General Petraeus and the new optimism

By Hans-Inge Langø, on March 15th, 2011

While most of the world is focused on the tragedy unfolding in Japan, Washington today was all about Afghanistan. In front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, gave much-anticipated testimony on the progress of the war. Not too surprisingly, the general had good news:

As a bottom line up front, it is ISAF’s assessment that the momentum achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas. However, while the security progress achieved over . . .
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Fighting the short war in Afghanistan

By Hans-Inge Langø, on February 8th, 2011

Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter who brought down General Stanley McChrystal, is back on the Afghan beat. In the magazine’s latest issue Hastings has turned his attention to McChrystal’s successor, General David Petraeus. While touted as a profile of the commander, the article serves more as a profile of current U.S. policy on Afghanistan (needless to say, Petraeus declined to comment on the story). Hastings’ newest article lacks the wow-factor of the McChrystal profile, but paints a convincing portrait of the Obama administration’s thinking on the war in Afghanistan. At the center of the story is Petraeus new . . .
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