On 22 March 2009, Sunday, President Obama stated on CBS TV that his government was considering an “exit strategy” in Afghanistan!The Times of India, (TOT), Kolkata, 24March09.
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JacobsenMark, British Retreat from Waziristan, When an Afghan army threatened India’s Northwest Frontier in May 1919, British forces and local militia were handicapped by desertion and mutiny. http://www.khyber.org/
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“Fresh Air”, npr.org, Obama administration reviewing Afghan strategy, electronically accessed 26 Feb 2009. The White House and the Pentagon are developing a new strategy “that has a rough deadline of five years”.
CBS interview, “60 Minutes”, cited in The Times of India (TOI), Kolkata, 18Nov.08.
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Audio tape, cited in TOI, 20Nov.08.
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TOI, 19March2009, p. 1.
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TOI, 16, 17March2009. The 17 March 09 report states that the Taliban denied report of any talks and declared that they would continue to fight for 3,000 years till all foreign powers had left.
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It had all started with a local mixed Hindu-Muslim marriage. Upon receiving complaint from the Hindu bride’s side, British justice declared the marriage illegal. That triggered the wrath of the Faqir who declared jihad against the British infidels. Details of Ipi and contemporary anti-British trends in India and Afghanistan in Milan Hauner, India in Axis Strategy, Stuttgart, Klett-Cotta, 1981, and” “One Man against the Empire”, Journal of Contemporary History, Univ. of Cambridge, UK, vol. 16. No. 1, The Second World War: Part 1 (Jan.1981), pp. 183-212, reproduced in www.khyber.org; and BanerjeeJyotirmoy, ‘The Role of Germany in India’s Freedom Struggle”, Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, Kolkata, vol. 6, 2001-02, pp. 117-130.
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“Insurgent freedom of action to recruit, stage, train and sustain across the border has improved due to the lack of an effective counterinsurgency capability and strategy in the Pakistan tribal areas. A porous border exacerbates this situation.” General David D. McKiernan, Commander, International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan, “Winning in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”, ISAF MIRROR, September2008, p. 11, www.nato.int/isaf.
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AbdullahAchmed, “An Afghan Raid”, in Fifty Amazing Hairbreadth Escapes, Bombay, no editor, no date, pp. 213-214.
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HaunerMilan“One Man against the Empire”, op. cit, pp. 183-212.
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First in: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan By Schroen, Gary (Author), Novato, CA, Presidio, also Ballantine, 2007; Gary Bernsten, JAWBREAKER.The Attack on Bin Laden and A1 Qaeda: a Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander Von Gary Berntsen, Ralph Pezzullo, Crown Publishers, 2005.
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Lt.-Col.SandesE.W.C.“Indian Sappers and Miners”, The Institute of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1948, pp. 662-666.
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Churchill had enjoyed a major milestone in his young career when he delivered his first public address to a picnic meeting of the Primrose League of Bath. Churchill’s principal theme had been the importance of maintaining the grand empire fashioned during Victoria’s reign. Despite the lamentations of “croakers” who believed the British Empire must soon go the way of Babylon, Carthage, and Rome, Churchill urged his listeners to stay the course. The British people, he proclaimed, must continue to pursue “that course marked out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilisation and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth.” Mad Mullas and Englishmen, discussed in detail in Edwards, op. cit, pp. 157-9, http://books.google.com [Emphasis added].