Wikileaks: Chan eil sinn airidh

ha robh na pàipearan nach d’ fhuair am fiosrachadh fada ga chàineadh. Dh’ atharraich iad an sgeulachd bho ghnothaich ma dheidhinn nan uabhasan is na mearachdan a thathas a’ dèanamh ann an Afghanistan gu aithrisean ma dheidhinn cò as a thàinig am fiosrachadh agus mar a bhathas mas fhìor a’ cur feachdan na co-bhonntachd ann [...]

‘Suicide bombers’ attack Bagram airport

blockquote>“On Tuesday, the toll of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomb in Kabul killed at least five United States service members. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war killed the second 500 in fewer than two. A resurgent Taliban active in almost every province, a [...]

Where teenagers are grounded by the law

he other day someone I’ve always taken to be of liberal persuasion suggested that once we’ve brought the troops back from Afghanistan, we could put them on the streets of Britain to deal with teenage crime.
This move, he said, though smacking of the jackboot totalitarianism he had opposed all his life, would be in the [...]

Tory stance on Europe looms over ’special relationship’

or all the photo opportunities and broad smiles that followed William Hague’s meeting with the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the new foreign secretary must know that he has his work cut to convince the US that Britain is still a reliable, major player on the world stage. Its position on Europe will have [...]

US must stay in Afghanistan – for women’s sake

As we reported earlier, there is concern in Russia over the US military’s preparations to start quitting Afghanistan by the middle of next year, for fear of the possible effects the rise in Islamic fundamentalism would have on neighbouring nuclear-armed Pakistan and central Asia as a whole. Now, American academics are urging the Obama administration [...]

Russia hopes Obama is in no hurry to quit Afghanistan

There are hopeful sounds coming out of Washington that President Barack Obama’s military “surge” in Afghanistan is beginning to wear down the Taliban, which could pave the way for an eventual withdrawal. However, there is concern in Russia that, far from being successful, the US is preparing to cut and run, declaring mission accomplished as [...]

Election briefing: Cauldron finally comes to the boil

By John Knox
��Double , double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” All the ingredients have been stirred into the pot – eye of opinion poll, toe of spending cut, root of recession, skin of debate, rib of Rochdale. “When shall we three meet again?” the three Westminster warlocks are asking themselves. “When the [...]

Vietnam doing fine, thank you, 35 years after the shooting stopped

Thirty-five years after the end of what they call the American War, the Vietnamese people are confident about their future in a globalised world, according to an AP-GfK poll released today.
The war ended on 30 April, 1975, with the fall South Vietnam’s capital Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), to communist troops from the [...]

Royal Scots: Still flying the flag after 377 years

The “poor bloody infantry” arguably had one of the toughest jobs in battle, building and supplying the front line, and no-one has been “keeping the line” longer than the Royal Scots, the oldest regiment in the British Army.  Known as “Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguards” – after a 17th-century bragging competition with the French – they have, [...]

TV debate sketch: tough on chefs and the causes of chefs

eaving aside Scotland for the moment, let’s look at the second televised leaders’ debate, which saw Broon resume his obsession with keeping foreign chefs out of Britain.
First, though, I’ll cut to the chase and tell you who won: Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, by a country mile. Hardly surprising since most of his support comes [...]

Washington warned: Afghanistan bears the hallmarks of Vietnam

It may seem too early to tell whether history is repeating itself, but US liberals are becoming increasingly concerned that the Obama administration is following a pattern of behaviour that plunged earlier administrations into disastrous foreign policy crises, from the Bay of Pigs invasion to the Vietnam morass and the backing of the Shah of [...]

Online focus group shows shift from Labour to SNP

ore than 730 people have taken part in the Caledonian Mercury’s online focus group. As we move closer to polling day we’ll come back and ask how opinions have changed.
A word of warning, this is not an opinion poll as it is a self-selecting group. The real value in these focus groups lies in seeing [...]

Clegg comes out on top in televised debate

Nick Clegg emerged as the main beneficiary from the first televised leaders’ election debate tonight, using the nationwide platform to boost his third-party profile and appear the equal of the challengers for Downing Street.
All three leaders performed solidly, each making their carefully prepared points and none made any of the gaffes that their parties feared [...]

Karzai meets breakaway mujahideen group

n one of the most significant moves in recent months to reach a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has met a mujahideen group that is believed to have fallen out with the Taliban.
While the outcome of the meeting was not initially clear, it represents yet another twist in Afghanistan’s long history of alliances [...]

Analysis: Change is in the air – all over the world

World events over the past few months suggest that a major rethink of everyone’s position is under way; the chess pieces are on the floor again and it is still not clear whether we will emerge from this tumult enlightened or confused, richer or poorer, alive or dead. The Great Game [...]

Carter fights back over foreign policy legacy

ormer US President Jimmy Carter has made an impassioned defence of his administration’s foreign policy in the face of a flurry of references to “Carter syndrome” in the US media.
“Carter syndrome” is the term used by neo-conservative commentators to describe President Barack Obama’s perceived weakness in dealing with Iran, Russia, China and other real and [...]

Dutch split might be fatal crack in dyke for Western resolve

he likelihood of a Dutch pullout from Afghanistan, brought about by the collapse of the coalition government at the weekend, couldn’t have come at a worse time for NATO forces as they push ahead with their offensive against the Taliban in the Marjah region of Helmand province.
Breaking ranks over a deeply unpopular war may make [...]

Expert witness: We are doomed to failure in Afghanistan, says former colonel

By Stuart Crawford – former Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army’s 4th Royal tank Regiment
here has been much ado in the media over the past few days over the latest NATO military initiative in Afghanistan, Operation Moshtarak. The joint coalition and Afghan offensive involving 15,000 battlefield troops hopes to oust the Taliban from some of [...]

Expert Witness: Did Nimrod report protect ministers?

James Jones was a Nimrod engineering officer, responsible for carrying out flight trials at A&AEE Boscombe Down (now QinetiQ), prior to aircraft entering service in 1968. He flew in XV230 (the aircraft lost over Afghanistan) in 1969. Since the accident in 2006 he has acted as a technical advisor to the families who lost loved [...]

Reid blames Vietnam syndrome for lack of reconstruction in Iraq

John Reid, the former Secretary of State for Defence, had an interesting take on the Vietnam syndrome today when he suggested to the Chilcot Inquiry panel that the United States was unprepared to “rebuild” Iraq after the invasion because there were Vietnam War veterans among the US senior military command who wanted no part in [...]

Army did not have enough time to prepare for Iraq war – Stirrup

ir Jock Stirrup’s evidence at the Chilcot Inquiry today was as professional as Tony Blair’s was devious.
Though we are no closer to knowing for sure who was to blame for the shortage of body armour and other equipment that led to unnecessary deaths in Iraq, the armed force’s chief’s assertion that Britain’s deeper involvement in [...]

The levers behind Karzai’s call to ‘disenchanted brothers’

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s call for the international community to help his government reach out to moderate Taliban leaders – his “disenchanted brothers” – in an effort to end the eight-year war may have sounded pragmatic and statesmanlike to some, but it was almost certainly not his idea.
Delegates at a 70-nation conference in London called [...]

‘Taliban can sustain itself indefinitely,’ says top US intelligence officer

The top US intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Major General Michael Flynn, sees the Taliban as a loosely organised but increasingly cohesive and effective force that can sustain itself indefinitely, thriving on the weakness of the Afghan government and the failure of the international community to rebuild the country’s shattered infrastructure.
In a briefing, Flynn, director of [...]