Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency Initiative

Peter Bergen on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees | 'Al Qaeda's Message to Barack Obama'

Articles — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:41:00 -0500

New America in the News:

PETER BERGEN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Well, of late, Anderson, both Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, obviously, they've got a lot of time on their hands, sitting around, trying to avoid being killed by a Hellfire missile strike. But in between those, they're doing a lot of reading.

And they're reading Noam Chomsky, and they're reading Malcolm X, because in recent statements from both of al Qaeda's leaders, they've mentioned these books. Probably because of the influence of an American member of al Qaeda, a guy called Adam Gadahn, somebody from California, a Jewish family converted to Islam, is now with al Qaeda. And I think he's introducing al Qaeda's leaders to these texts. LINK

Peter Bergen in the Toronto Star | 'Taliban Spurns Karzai's Peace Bid'

Articles — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:08:00 -0500

New America in the News:
Although Omar is the most senior Taliban leader, says Peter Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader, "he controls the faithful, but there hasn't been any evidence for years that he controls the battlefield." LINK

Peter Bergen in the Associated Press | 'Serb Who Hijacked US Plane in 1979 Dies'

Articles — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:57:00 -0500

New America in the News:
"There is no merit to the idea that this gentlemen's idea was stolen by Osama bin Laden," Peter Bergen, who interviewed bin Laden and wrote a book about the al-Qaida leader, said in an e-mail. He said the idea of flying planes into buildings first came up for al-Qaida in a 1995 plot to attack 11 airliners flying from Asia to the U.S. LINK

Steve Coll on The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC) | 'Bad Inheritance'

Articles — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:52:00 -0400

New America in the News:
Whoever gets voted president will inherit a lot of foreign policy problems. Rachel Maddow talks about the latest in Iraq and Afghanistan with The New Yorker’s Steve Coll. LINK to video

Steve Coll on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show | '30 Issues: Pakistan and Afghanistan'

Articles — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:14:00 -0400

New America in the News:
Steve Coll, president and CEO of the New America Foundation, staff writer at the New Yorker Magazine and author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, with Barnett Rubin, director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and Tariq Ali, novelist, historian, one of New Left Review’s editors and the author of The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, will talk about what the next president faces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. LINK to audio

Steve Coll on 'Frontline' | The War Briefing

adminn — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:21:00 -0400

New America in the News:

New America Foundation CEO Steve Coll was key source for the recent Frontline special, "The War Briefing." The program, which first aired on PBS Oct. 28, focuses on the war in Afghanistan, and asks: "What are the next president's options."

A transcript of Coll's interview is available, while the full program can be viewed on the Frontline web site.

Selected excerpts from Coll's analysis are included below:

Can you describe Afghanistan in terms of the fronts where the war is being fought and where it's becoming more dicey?

The field of combat in Afghanistan has been expanding steadily over the last couple of years. When the insurgency first began to revive, it was concentrated primarily in the deep south, around Helmand and Kandahar provinces, which is the historical heartland of the Taliban and also one of the centers of the opium economy.

Gradually the war has expanded along the Pakistan border, almost in its entirety, from the southern areas around Ghazni and Paktika provinces in Afghanistan all the way up to the mountainous northeastern territory of Kunar.

The most important recent developments are the encroachments that the Taliban are making around the capital of Kabul, in Wardak and Logar provinces. They are gradually squeezing the territory that the federal government can operate in, in the environment of Kabul. That means that national transportation is pressured. It means that the political reach of the government is constrained.

There are still large sections of the north and northwest that are inhabited by non-Pashtun allies of President Karzai, where the war is essentially not present except in occasional suicide bombings or assassination attempts. Those territories promise to be stable for an indefinite time, because the Taliban simply do not have the ethnic identity and language identity required to operate effectively in those areas. But that is the only part of Afghanistan today that is untouched by the war.

What progress has been made since 9/11 to bring the tribal areas into Pakistani society?

Very little. By and large, since 9/11, the tribal areas have gone in the other direction. They have essentially separated themselves from Pakistan through a Taliban takeover. ...

What's required now -- and what the Pakistani government, by and large, has in mind -- is a different project of ... economic development and political change that would gradually change the constitutional status and the economic circumstances of these tribal agencies. There is a national consensus, more or less, in Pakistan -- including among residents of the tribal agencies -- to change their relationship with the government of Pakistan, to eliminate this special status that's a hangover from the British colonial period.

But that's a 10-to-15-year project. And right now, the Taliban are in control of this territory, and they're not about to hand it over to Pakistani political parties or to some new system of constitutional commissioners who are there to reincorporate the tribal areas into Pakistani national life.

There is talk from both candidates about the need to move troops out of Iraq and increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. ... Is there a lot of discussion within the military about the need or the opportunity to move troops?

There's a consensus within the military that more troops are required in Afghanistan, at least a brigade or two, possibly more. It's difficult to really know what military advice about troop levels in Afghanistan would be if it were unencumbered by the reality that only a limited number of brigades is actually available in the foreseeable future.

So what do we do?

In the long run, American policy in Pakistan ought to be clear. We're invested in the success of a stable, democratic, constitutional Pakistan. There is every reason to be hopeful about Pakistan's success, looking out 10 or 20 years.

India is rising. In 50 years, India may be one of the most prosperous and significant countries on the planet, and Pakistan is right next door. It has every reason to succeed as India succeeds if it is able to organize its political and constitutional affairs to benefit from this historical change that's going on in South Asia.

The United States, in its own interests, ... ought to be investing in a stable, democratic, constitutional, strong, modernizing Pakistan at the level of civil society, at the level of democratic politics, at the level of media, at the level of economics and meeting the basic needs of the many tens of millions of Pakistanis who live in poverty. That, along with security and stability in Afghanistan, has to be a part of American strategy in Pakistan.

It has been a neglected aspect of American policy. Virtually all of the financial investments that we have made in Pakistan since 9/11 have been military investments, security investments. Those investments now have to be rebalanced by a broader approach.

Having said all of that, we have to be clear-eyed that there is a short-term threat to American lives and interests in the form of the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating on Pakistani soil. ... Addressing that threat is not going to be easy at the same time that you're building this long-term strategy to support Pakistani democracy.

Peter Bergen in The National | 'Guantanamo Will Remain Open After Bush Leaves Office'

Articles — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:53:00 -0400

New America in the News:
In Foreign Policy magazine, Ken Ballen and Peter Bergen said: "When a federal judge ordered the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees earlier this month, it was the first real chance in the seven-year history of the prison camp that any of the prisoners might be transferred to the United States. In making his ruling, the judge categorically rejected the Bush administration's claim that any of the released prisoners, who are all Chinese Muslims, were 'enemy combatants' or posed a risk to US security. The decision was temporarily suspended by the appeals court, but the judge was on solid ground.

"Controversy over the Bush administration's policy to detain enemy combatants at Guantanamo has raged since the facility opened in 2002 - fueled primarily by the lack of legal protections afforded the detainees and allegations of their mistreatment. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that most of these detainees have never posed any real risk to America, for the simple reason that the vast majority of them were never 'enemy combatants' in the first place. Indeed, striking new data we have obtained show that, if anything, the 17 innocent Chinese men are far from exceptional." LINK

NYC EVENT: Afghanistan Today

Communications — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/17/2008 - 9:00am

As the U.S. engages in a simmering war as well as in continued attempts at building infrastructure, the conference will consider a wide-ranging set of questions in order to clarify policy choices regarding both military and civilian investment in the country. What is the current state of the Taliban? What might the reversion of Afghanistan into failed-state status mean? How prevalent -- and how effective -- has counterinsurgency been in the country? What are the possibilities for increasing the size of the Afghan army and for embedding U.S. advisors and troops? What role does NATO play? What are the realistic scenarios for stemming the drug trade, and for mounting reconstruction? As a result, the day promises to provide a comprehensive picture of the challenges that face America’s foreign policy establishment as one administration transitions power to the next.

Co-sponsored by The Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law and the New America Foundation.

Peter Bergen in the Daily Times | 'Al Qaeda Killing More Muslims Than ‘Infidels’'

Articles — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:59:00 -0400

New America in the News:
Al Qaeda is killing more Muslims than what it calls ‘infidels’, something that is going to be a ‘game changer’ for the terrorist group, according to Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation.

He was speaking at a one-day conference on Al Qaeda organised by the Foundation and the New York University Centre for Law and Security. Al Qaeda, Bergen said is losing public support in Muslim countries and one thing is certain: will never become Hezbollah or Hamas. Al Qaeda, he added, has ‘no Plan B’. It attacked a far enemy, the United States, to get a near enemy, an Arab regime. Al Qaeda was now trying to become a mass movement riding on the back of the Taliban. LINK

How Not to Lose Afghanistan (and Pakistan)

American Strategy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:24:00 -0400

In late May, some 40 Pakistani journalists received a summons to an unusual press conference held by Baitullah Mehsud, the rarely photographed leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who is accused of orchestrating the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, sending suicide bombers to Spain earlier this year, and dispatching an army of fighters into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and NATO forces in recent months. Surrounded by a posse of heavily armed Taliban guards, Mehsud boasted that he had hundreds of trained suicide bombers ready for martyrdom.

It was an extraordinarily brazen public performance for a man who is supposedly in hiding.[1] The press conference was held in… more