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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew U.S. representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan is critic of Biden on war
Posted by Max Fisher on May 3, 2013 at 6:00 pm
The White House has named James Dobbins, a veteran diplomat, as its new special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In late 2010, as debate raged within and without the Obama administration on what strategy the U.S. should pursue in the war in Afghanistan, James Dobbins wrote an article for Foreign Affairs that, as the journals Twitter account put it, lambasted critics of COIN in Afghanistan. COIN is military lingo for counterinsurgency, the strategy that Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus both pursued there. Dobbins, in his article, singled out administration officials who opposed the strategy, including Vice President Biden, whom he referred to as a civilian adviser.
The article reads as an attempt to enter, and perhaps call, the administrations internal debate over Afghanistan, largely by criticizing and sometimes mocking the positions he attributes to Vice President Joe Biden and other White House officials.
Heres the start of the article; see in particular the incredulous second paragraph (my emphasis added):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/03/new-u-s-representative-to-afghanistan-and-pakistan-is-critic-of-biden-on-war/
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)NCarolinawoman
(2,825 posts)Still do. All you have to do is see how well that "surge" is doing now in Iraq. What a waste!
rug
(82,333 posts)Awful, awful decision.
NCarolinawoman
(2,825 posts)Maybe he should see that Hornet's nest up close.
If I remember correctly, the former ambassador at the time, who was a military guy, was against the escalation.