BY YAROSLAV TROFIMOV AND GABRIELE PARUSSINI KABUL—France's new President François Hollande Friday came to Kabul to defend his decision to withdraw French combat troops two years ahead of the rest of the U.S.-led coalition, saying his country was leaving because its job was completed. France currently is the fifth-largest contributor to the coalition, with 3,200 soldiers, most of them focusing on the volatile Kapisa province northeast of Kabul. Speaking at a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mr. Hollande said that all French combat troops—numbering some 2,000—will be gone by Jan. 1. "We have accomplished the mission," Mr. Hollande said. "It is a point ...BY YAROSLAV TROFIMOV AND GABRIELE PARUSSINI KABUL—France's new President François Hollande Friday came to Kabul to defend his decision ... Continue reading →
KABUL—A $275 million fleet of Afghan air force transport planes provided by the U.S. over the past three years has been grounded for months because of lack of adequate maintenance and potential safety problems, American military officials said. The fleet of 15 C-27A cargo planes is meant to provide the logistics backbone for the Afghan military, which now depends instead on air transport by the U.S.-led coalition—at a time when the U.S. is working to prepare its Afghan counterparts to manage their own security affairs. The Italian aircraft, also known as the G222, were built from 1977 to 1985 and in service with the Italian air force before the U.S. bought them for Afghanistan. Prime contractor Alenia Aermacchi North America, a unit of Italian defense ... Continue reading →
KABUL—A $275 million fleet of Afghan air force transport planes provided by the U.S. over the past three years has been grounded for months because of lack of adequate maintenance and potential safety problems, American military officials said. The fleet of 15 C-27A cargo planes is meant to provide the logistics backbone for the Afghan military, which now depends instead on air transport by the U.S.-led coalition—at a time when the U.S. is working to prepare its Afghan counterparts to manage their own security affairs. The Italian aircraft, also known as the G222, were built from 1977 to 1985 and in service with the Italian air force before the U.S. bought them for Afghanistan. Prime contractor Alenia Aermacchi North America, a unit of Italian defense ... Continue reading →
I established a Facebook account in 2008. My motivation was ignoble: I wanted to distribute my journalism more widely. I have acquired since then just over four thousand “friends”—in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Middle East, and of course, closer to home. I have discovered the appeal of Facebook’s community—for example, the extraordinary emotional support that swells in virtual space when people come together online around a friend’s illness or life celebrations. Through its bedrock appeals to friendship, community, public identity, and activism—and its commercial exploitation of these values—Facebook is an unprecedented synthesis of corporate and public spaces. The corporation’s social contract with users is ambitious, yet neither its governance system nor its young ruler seem trustworthy. Then came this month’s initial public offering of stock—a ... Continue reading →
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