Obama administration is continuing the security policies of the discredited Bush presidenc

"Words matter in this situation because one of the ways we're going to win this struggle is through the battle of hearts and minds," Obama said. It seems that the "war on terror" catchphrase, burned into the American lexicon soon after the 9/11 attacks, is now being deliberately replaced by the Obama administration in a bid to repair America's negative image in the Muslim world.

Obama's executive orders on his first day in office on 22 January 2009 closing the infamous Guantanamo Bay military detention camp and outlawing torture have been interpreted in some circles as closing the door on Bush's so-called "war on terror". However, on the same day that Obama signed the orders he also appointed Richard Holbrooke as his special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke is the man who, after 9/11, championed military action against Afghanistan, ruled out any role for diplomacy to deal with the Taliban, labelled all the Taliban as extremists, and viewed the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as one and the same entity.

One day later on 23 January, Obama also gave the green light to missile attacks from Pakistan-based and CIA-operated unmanned drone aircraft on targets in Pakistan's tribal areas. About 20 civilians were killed in two missile attacks. Tellingly, the new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, then declined to answer questions about the air strikes, saying "I'm not going to get into these matters."

On 14 February, at least 28 people were killed in two drone attacks in the Waziristan region. And two days later, on 16 February, a US drone fired three missiles at a target in the Kurram Agency, killing 30 people. As usual, the attacks were said to be against Taliban targets, but not a single body of a local or foreign militant, who were claimed to be in the area by Pakistani or American officials, was produced. Instead, it was claimed that the militants had cordoned off the area after the attack and taken away their dead and wounded. Ironically, these two US missile attacks within three days of each other came as Holbrooke was visiting the region.

The US and the Afghan government both blame Pakistan's NWFP region for the surge in Afghan Taliban operations in different parts of Afghanistan, including in the capital, Kabul. In an interview aired on CNN on 13 February, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose writ does not extend much beyond his presidential palace, claimed that the Taliban had no hiding places in Afghan villages, asserting that "the war on terrorism is not in Afghan villages and Al-Qaeda will not have and does not have a hiding place in Afghanistan since the Taliban were driven out in 2001."

However, a recent report by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), a European think-tank, refutes Karzai's assertion. According to the report, released on 8 December, the Taliban now have a presence in 72 per cent of Afghanistan, up from 54 per cent a year ago. According to the ICOS, Taliban forces have advanced from their southern heartlands, where they are now the de facto governing power in a number of towns and villages, to Afghanistan's western and north-western provinces, as well as to provinces north of Kabul. Within a year, the Taliban's presence in the country has increased by a startling 18 per cent, according to ICOS research on the ground.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/937/op12.htm