US open to reconciling with Taliban: commander

source-dawn.com
WASHINGTON: The top commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday vowed coalition forces would prevail in the war and said he was open to reconciling with rank-and-file insurgents.‘We will win. The Taliban won’t win. But we will also have to deal through good and bad days, and good and bad months,’ General Stanley McChrystal told US National Public Radio.

The US commander’s comments came after he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday that the Taliban had momentum in the war and that Nato-led forces had to ‘stop their initiative.’ The insurgency has reached its most deadly level since the 2001 US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime, with a record 76 coalition soldiers killed last month.McChrystal said he supported President Hamid Karzai’s view that many insurgents were motivated by money and not ideology.‘I would absolutely be comfortable with fighters and lower level commanders making the decision to reintegrate into the Afghan political process under the Afghan constitution,’ he said.



As for reconciling with higher level figures in the insurgent leadership, McChrystal said ‘that’s clearly up to him (Karzai).’ Karzai, who took office after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 and is favored to win in elections on August 20, has so far failed in his bid to persuade large numbers of insurgents to lay down their arms and accept the country’s constitution.Asked about security for the elections in the volatile Helmand province, where thousands of US forces have deployed, McChrystal said most Afghans would have the opportunity to vote.He said that ‘the vast percentage of voters in Helmand are going to have the option to vote’ but added it was possible some would choose to stay away from the polls.



Amid growing speculation McChrystal will ask President Barack Obama for more US troops, the general said he could not rule out such a request.And he said he would like to see more Afghan security forces though he said there was a misconception that Afghan troops were absent in southern provinces.‘The idea that there aren’t Afghan National Army in there is incorrect,’ he said.‘Are there as many Afghan National Army as we’d like? No there are not. The Afghan National Army is still something that’s growing in size,’ he said.

McChrystal, who is preparing a strategic assessment for Afghanistan due to be submitted by early September, is likely to urge a dramatic increase in Afghan security forces, analysts said.

Karzai said Monday he would double Afghanistan’s security forces and push plans for Saudi-mediated peace talks with insurgents if he is elected for a second term.There are more than 100,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan, with more than 60,000 from the US military

Chavez Urges Military to Be Prepared for Conflict

SOURCE-TIME
Chavez Urges Military to Be Prepared for Conflict
By AP / CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER Monday, Aug. 10, ..
(CARACAS) — President Hugo Chavez told his military to be prepared for a possible confrontation with Colombia, warning that Bogota's plans to increase the U.S. military presence at its bases poses a threat to Venezuela.

"The threat against us is growing," Chavez said Sunday. "I call on the people and the armed forces, let's go, ready for combat!"

The former paratroop commander said Colombian soldiers were recently spotted crossing the porous 1,400-mile (2,300-kilometer) border that separates the two countries and suggested that Colombia may have been trying to provoke Venezuela's military.

"They crossed the Orinoco River in a boat and entered Venezuelan territory," Chavez said. "When our troops arrived, they'd already left."


In Bogota, Colombia's foreign ministry issued a news release denying reports that soldiers crossed into Venezuela, after a revision of troop movements by the Colombian military.

Chavez said Venezuela's foreign ministry would file a formal complaint and warned Colombia that "Venezuela's military will respond if there's an attack against Venezuela."

Chavez said he would attend this week's summit of the Union of South American Nations in Quito, Ecuador, to urge his Latin American allies to pressure Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to reconsider plans to increase the U.S. military presence.

"We cannot ignore this threat," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello President."

Chavez also halted shipments of subsidized fuel to Colombia, saying Venezuela should not be sending cheap gasoline to an antagonistic neighbor.

"Let them buy it at the real price. How are we going to favor Uribe's government in this manner?" he said.

Colombian officials say Venezuela has no reason to be concerned, and that the U.S. forces would help fight drug trafficking. The proposed 10-year agreement, they claim, would not push the number of American troops and civilian military contractors beyond 1,400 — the maximum currently permitted by U.S. law.

Tensions between the neighboring South American nations also have been heightened over Colombia's disclosure that three Swedish-made anti-tank weapons found at a rebel camp last year had been purchased by Venezuela's military.

Chavez has accused Colombia of acting irresponsibly in its accusation that the anti-tank rocket launchers sold to Venezuela in 1988 were obtained by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Sweden confirmed the weapons were originally sold to Venezuela's military.

Chavez denies aiding the FARC. He claims the United States is using Colombia as part of a broader plan to portray him as a supporter of terrorist groups to provide justification for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.

Chavez said Sunday that diplomatic relations with Uribe's government "remain frozen" even though he ordered Venezuela's ambassador to return to Colombia more than a week after he was recalled.

Chavez criticizes Colombia over weapons claims

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday blasted accusations that his government supplied Colombian guerrillas with shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons and accused the neighboring country of blackmail.Mr Chavez said he would halt the import of 10,000 cars from Colombia and ban a Colombian energy firm from exploring Venezuela's oil-rich Orinoco region.
Last week, Mr Chavez recalled his envoy from Bogota over accusations Venezuela had provided arms to Colombian rebels.
He is also angry at plans to allow US troops to use Colombian military bases.
The remarks follow a freezing of diplomatic relations between the countries over the weapons issue and over negotiations that could lead to American military bases in Colombia.
Colombia announced last week that three anti-tank weapons seized from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had been traced to Venezuela.
"What a coincidence that this information comes from Colombia one day after we started to raise our voice against the installation of Yankee bases in Colombian territory," Chavez said at a televised news conference."Of course this is not a coincidence," he said. "This is the government of Colombia trying to blackmail us."
Chavez said that Venezuela feels threatened by the possibility of the United States having military bases in Colombia and that the accusations were designed to discredit him.
"It was a dirty move," he said.
The Venezuelan president said he doubted the authenticity of the weapons that Colombia recovered but left open the possibility that they had been stolen by Colombian guerrillas during an attack on a Venezuela naval outpost in 1995.
Both the Venezuelan and Colombian governments had lists of the weapons reported missing after that attack, which included the same model of anti-tank AT4 weapons now in question, he said.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has also said that the guerrillas were trying to buy anti-aircraft missiles.
Chavez responded last week by recalling Venezuela's ambassador to Colombia, as well as most of the embassy's staff.
Tensions between the two countries have been high since March 2008, when Chavez ordered tanks to the border in response to a Colombian attack on FARC bases in Ecuador. More recently, Chavez has severely criticized Uribe for entering into negotiations to allow the United States to open military bases in Colombia.
The United States says it needs the bases because Ecuador has ordered the closing of a U.S. installation there. Chavez accuses the United States of wanting the bases so it can attack Venezuela.
This is not the first time Venezuela has been tied to the FARC, which has been fighting the Colombian government for more than 45 years.
Last fall, the U.S. Treasury Department accused two senior Venezuelan intelligence officials and a former official of providing weapons to the FARC and assisting the rebels with narcotics trafficking.
The United States identified one of the individuals as Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, director of Venezuela's Military Intelligence Directorate.
Another individual was identified as Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin, who was Venezuela's minister of interior and justice until September.