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Biden told the allies the United States was open to talks with Taliban moderates as part of a new approach, echoing comments made by President Barack Obama over the weekend.
"It is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state," Biden said.....
To make this work in Afghanistan, the foreign troops, or the government, has to organize, and in some cases arm, the civilians. There are some special problems, however. The tribal situations are different in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in the more urban areas. Afghanistan is mostly rural, with lots of villages, many in isolated valleys. People are very vulnerable to a large (a hundred or so armed men) group of Taliban. To the average Afghan, these guys are foreigners. In general, Afghans don't like foreigners, especially armed foreigners making threats. As the poorest country in Asia, with the shortest lifespan (44 years), Afghans don't like to take chances. If they see no way of dealing with the Taliban (or some local warlord, or drug gang), they will hunker down and make the best of it.
The Afghan government is a bunch of foreigners as far as most Afghans are concerned. If government people come by and say, "we're the government and we're here to help you," the locals will be skeptical. U.S. Special Forces have long known that the only way to develop any kind of useful relationship with these rural Afghans is to be friendly and make yourself useful. Thus when Special Forces operate in an area, they impress the locals by speaking their language, and always bringing gifts. Medical care is very popular, since most Afghans never get a taste of modern medical care. Each Special Forces team has two medics, who know lots of medical procedures, and have plenty of medicines, that can cure a lot of ailments found among rural Afghans. The Special Forces has long since passed this wisdom on to regular combat units.
While an infantry company commander rarely speaks Dari or Puhsto (the two most common languages in Afghanistan), they know to bring medics, medicine and other gifts when making the rounds of the villages. Like the Special Forces, the infantry officers sit and drink tea with the village elders, establishing a relationship. Even if this only results in the elders saying that they are terrorized by the Taliban and cannot cooperate with the Americans (but thanks for patching up a bunch of us and leaving all the gifts), it helps establish a connection that can eventually prove useful. However, even this will often bring down the wrath of the Taliban, who consider American gifts (even medicines, food or gadgets) "sinful" and requiring that the Afghans who accepted them be punished.
What the American tactics strive to do is convince the villagers that, while the Americans are foreigners, they are the less dangerous and more useful foreigners, especially compared to the Taliban. While this sounds like a swell tactic, if often gets messed up by tribal politics. The Taliban often have some local guys who are members. They have a local agenda (more power, land or getting a wife from some powerful family), and make the most of the Taliban reinforcements (who may be recruited from clans or tribes in the province, or be men from Pakistan, or farther afield.) Villagers are sensitive to the fact that, while the Americans may be more generous, and dangerous in a fight, they will not be around as long as the local Taliban. So the Americans have to make a convincing case that the Taliban will be taken care of (killed or hauled away to some distant jail.) This is why the U.S. wants to hand out weapons to some villagers, so they have a chance of holding off the Taliban.
As cell phone service spreads, the U.S. can give out prepaid cell phones, just as they earlier gave out pre-paid satellite phones. The U.S. can get reinforcements to any part of Afghanistan quickly. This does wonders in getting villagers to provide information on who the Taliban are, and what they are up to.
Many NATO officers don't understand the U.S. tactics, because they've never seen this sort of thing before. But the U.S. has been operating this way for centuries. The U.S. Army Special Forces codified it all and became specialists in this sort of thing back in the 1950s. It works, even if you've never seen it before.
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) - Grenades lie unattended next to a west Mosul bazaar. Garbage bags throughout the city are searched daily for bombs. At a sprawling sheep market, Iraqi army soldiers are careful not to kick over rocks for fear of setting off hidden explosives.
War has ebbed in most parts of Iraq, but not in Mosul, the third-largest city and al-Qaida's last stronghold in the fragile new democracy. And time is running out on the around-the-clock U.S. military patrols of Mosul. U.S. troops must vacate cities by June 30 under an agreement with the Iraqis, and President Barack Obama is ending all American combat operations after August 2010.
The Iraqi security forces are not sure they'll be ready.
"If you don't have the Americans, this is not going to be good," said an Iraqi army captain who gave his name only as Ahmed to protect his family from insurgents. "I cannot take care of it."
Even so, "some people don't like coalition forces here," Ahmed added as his soldiers joined U.S. troops at the sheep market in west Mosul last week. "Iraqi people will come together, and it will be better."
Whether they will be safe in Mosul is anyone's guess.
In poverty-stricken Mosul, a Sunni-dominated city of about 2 million where the unemployment rate has risen even higher than the many trash piles, the U.S. military has long fought to contain al-Qaida from resurging in the rest of Iraq.
Still, al-Qaida is only one of the military's worries.
On Monday, gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in the western New Mosul neighborhood, killing two policemen and wounding one civilian.
Explosives are part of the daily cacophony in Mosul; the U.S. Army reported six bombs either found or detonated in the city last Thursday and Friday, one of which wounded an Iraqi soldier. Iraqi security forces themselves pose a threat: three American soldiers have been killed in Mosul since November by gunmen wearing Iraqi army or police uniforms.
The problems in Mosul "can put us off track and cause violence to really re-ignite in a greater way," Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the No. 2 U.S. general in Iraq, told reporters Monday.
But the military's main military focus in Mosul is al-Qaida, where efforts to obliterate the terror group and other Sunni militants have failed over the years.
Only recently have additional troops and intelligence gatherers from both the U.S. and Iraqi governments been sent to the capital city of Ninevah province, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, to keep al-Qaida from spreading. About 5,000 U.S. troops and 36,000 Iraqi army and police officers currently are stationed in Mosul.
It was also only recently that U.S. officials recognized al-Qaida's ability to survive after repeated military assaults, said Lt. Col. Tom Cipolla, a 1st Calvary Division battalion commander stationed at the U.S. Army's Marez base just outside Mosul.
"I'm not sure we really understood the level of the problem here early on," Cipolla said in an interview last week. "And I'm not sure we really understood how embedded al-Qaida was becoming. ... Al-Qaida in Iraq has proved to be a very resourceful enemy, capable of regenerating at a time when we thought it didn't have that capability."
Cipolla took his post three weeks ago after his predecessor, Lt. Col. Gary Derby, was killed Feb. 5 by a suicide car bomber. "I think we understand now that it is a fight that doesn't stop. It is part of the environment here that will have to be dealt with for a very long time."
Much of the renewed assault on al-Qaida has focused on finding out where the militants are in Mosul and where they will strike next - a task the U.S. is trying to hand off to Iraqis.
In the New Mosul neighborhood, Iraqi security forces have painted their telephone numbers on building walls. Walking the streets and getting to know the community also are part of the Iraqi plan to persuade residents to call with tips about insurgents or other suspicious activity.
Iraqi army Col. Aydan al-Jibouri, Mosul's deputy command, said the number of tips has risen by at least 50 percent over the last 10 months. It's a risk for Sunnis especially, since the majority of Mosul's insurgents likely come from the same tribes.
But since most security forces in the city are from other areas in Iraq, some locals said they feel comfortable talking to officials who can't easily identify them.
"We see the national police help us," said Nabil Ali Fawzi, wearing a black fez and standing on his doorstep last week. "We see any problems in our area, we call the national police."
A few minutes later, gunfire broke out several alleys away, spooking troops and sending residents back inside their homes. The shooters, whether threatening or merely firing celebratory rounds, were never found.
Neither were the attackers who lobbed a pair of rusty Russian-made grenades on top of an Iraqi army observation post in the city's Nablus section a few days earlier. When the grenades didn't explode, the Iraqi soldiers merely threw them back down on the street, where they lay next to a local bazaar for two days until a platoon of U.S. soldiers safely detonated them at the Iraqis' request.
The grenades incident made clear that despite ongoing training and advising by U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces are nowhere near to securing Mosul by themselves. It is not uncommon, for example, for as many as two-thirds of Iraqi soldiers or policemen to be on leave from their jobs and return home at any given time since very few of them are from Mosul.
How long the U.S. will stay in the Mosul fight is unknown - even to U.S. military officials.
By the end of June, U.S. combat troops are supposed to vacate bases inside Mosul and other Iraqi cities. Although they will continue to patrol the streets from camps outside the cities, troops will no longer be living among the civilian population - a tactic that proved effective in reducing violence in Baghdad.
Under a Jan. 1 security agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave the country by the end of 2011 - including the roughly 50,000 who will be left behind after the combat troops withdraw next year. Unless the Iraqis ask for continued help, that date is nonnegotiable, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. David Perkins said Monday.
"There's no intent, nor will there be any fudging of the agreement," Perkins told reporters at a Baghdad news conference when asked about Mosul's security situation.
Cipolla thinks Iraq will ask U.S. combat forces to stay as long as al-Qaida remains a threat in Mosul. By nearly all accounts, that will take years.
"I have a hard time believing anybody will make a decision to scale back the efforts before it's actually the right time to do so, because everybody understands how dangerous al-Qaida has been in the past," Cipolla said. "Nobody wants to go back to that."
Buffett said Monday during a live appearance on CNBC that current economic turmoil has basically followed the worst-case scenario he envisioned.
"It's fallen off a cliff," Buffett said. "Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven't seen."
Buffett said the changes are reflected in the results of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s subsidiaries. He said Berkshire's jewelry companies have suffered, but more people have been willing to switch to Geico to save money on car insurance.
He predicted that unemployment will likely climb a lot higher before the recession is done, but he also reiterated his optimistic long-term view: "Everything will be all right. We do have the greatest economic machine that's ever been created."
Fear and confusion have been driving consumer and investor behavior in recent months, Buffett said.
The nation's leaders need to clear up the confusion before anyone will become more confident, and he said all 535 members of Congress should stop the partisan bickering about solutions.
Buffett said he believes patriotic Republicans and Democrats will realize the nation is engaged in an economic war.
"What is required is a commander in chief that's looked at like a commander in chief in a time of war," Buffett said.
A little over a week ago, Buffett released his annual letter to shareholders describing the worst of his 44 years at the helm of Berkshire. The Omaha, Neb.-based company reported sharply lower profit because of its largely unrealized $7.5 billion investment and derivative losses.
Overall, Berkshire's 2008 profit of $4.99 billion, or $3,224 per Class A share, was down 62 percent from $13.21 billion, or $8,548 per share, in 2007.
Berkshire's fourth-quarter numbers were even worse. Buffett's company reported net income of $117 million, or $76 per share, down 96 percent from $2.95 billion, or $1,904 per share, a year earlier.
Buffett said he doesn't regret writing an editorial last fall encouraging people to buy U.S. stocks, but he joked that in hindsight he wishes he'd waited a few months to publish the piece. Since that editorial appeared on Oct. 17, the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen from 8,852.22 to close at 6,626.94 on Friday.
Buffett stands by his overall advice that over time owning stocks will be better than so-called safe investments.
"Overall, equities are going to do far better than U.S. government bonds at these prices," he said.
Buffett said he doesn't regret investing $8 billion of Berkshire's money in investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and conglomerate General Electric Co. last fall. Both companies gave Berkshire preferred shares paying 10 percent interest that Buffett said he doesn't think he could get now.
Berkshire owns a diverse mix of more than 60 companies, including insurance, furniture, carpet, jewelry, restaurants and utility businesses. And it has major investments in such companies as Wells Fargo & Co. and Coca-Cola Co.
The woman's lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that he would appeal the verdict against Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi. The attorney, Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, said the verdict issued March 3 also demands that Sawadi be deported after serving her sentence.
He said his client, who is not serving her sentence yet, was not speaking with the media, and he declined to provide more details about the case.
The newspaper Al-Watan said the woman met with the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread at her home in al-Chamil, a city north of the capital, Riyadh.
Al-Watan identified one man as Fahd al-Anzi, the nephew of Sawadi's late husband, and the other as his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein. It said they were arrested by the religious police after delivering the bread. The men also were convicted and sentenced to lashes and prison.
The court said it based its ruling on "citizen information" and testimony from al-Anzi's father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.
"Because she said she doesn't have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed," the court verdict read.
Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam prohibits men and women who are not immediate relatives from mingling. It also bars women from driving, and the playing of music, dancing and many movies also are a concern for hard-liners who believe they violate religious and moral values.
Complaints from Saudis have been growing that the religious police and courts are overstepping their broad mandate and interfering in people's lives, and critics lambasted the handling of Sawadi's case.
"How can a verdict be issued based on suspicion?" Laila Ahmed al-Ahdab, a physician who also is a columnist for Al-Watan, wrote Monday. "A group of people are misusing religion to serve their own interests."
Sawadi told the court she considered al-Anzi as her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she didn't provide evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.
Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said journalist Bandar al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan. In a recent article, he wrote that he felt the need to report the case "so everybody knows to what degree we have reached."
The woman's conviction came a few weeks after King Abdullah fired the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing owners of TV networks that broadcast "immoral content." The move was seen as part of an effort to weaken the hard-line Sunni Muslim establishment.
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