[G'bye. You want to talk up Democrats? Do it at Daily Kos. Not here. – NS]

The Delaware primary is a case of a battle won and a war lost.  Pollster.com:

Public Policy Polling (PPP) fielded a general election survey in Delaware over the weekend that they plan to release today, though they teased results yesterday that imply an even bigger Coons lead. They reported Coons “polls 26 points better” against O’Donnell than against Castle, that O’Donnell’s personal rating is 29% favorable, 50% unfavorable and that only 31% of Delware’s voters think she is “fit to hold office.”

The 50% unfavorable number is key.  It is extremely unlikely that O’Donnell will win in the general, which means that it will be even more extremely unlikely that the GOP will regain the majority in the Senate.  Thanks to Palin, Levin, Hannity et al., the party has just shot itself in the foot.  Congrats, guys.  You just let the ideologically purer become the enemy of the good.

I agree with Krauthammer and others.  Ground Zero is hallowed ground, and a mosque in such close proximity is bad form.  I don’t want it there.  Except there’s this one sticking point that I just can’t get around:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Like it not, Islam is a religion.  As adherents to the above words, we shouldn’t be in the business of prohibiting its free exercise, no matter where or how rude or how crass the place of worship.  Unless the operators are militant Islamists intending to incite violence, or unless the building doesn’t meet code requirements, I’m not seeing the logic of protesting against it or the media-stoking.  Changing the zoning code to disallow a mosque in that vicinity doesn’t make sense, unless the city bans all other places of worship in the same area.  Banning a mosque but no other religious facilities would come into conflict the Establishment Clause, putting the government in the business of giving preferences to some religions over another.  It pains me to say this, but the president is right.

To me, the best way to deal with unlikeable or unpleasant speech is to respond with more speech.  In that vein, the way to deal with crass developers is with more development.  I like Gutfield’s idea of a Muslim gay bar next door.  Or here’s another one:  A Muhammed cartoon shop.  Or why not a twice-the-size Christian church.  Or how about rebuilding Ground Zero already?  I’d rather see a building that would make Americans proud instead of a hole in the ground or a mausoleum.

Last Friday and over the weekend, the uber-partisan Paul Krugman took several swipes at Paul Ryan and his Roadmap, starting with the complaint that the CBO didn’t score the plan.  In a follow-up, he called Ryan a flimflammer.  One problem.  The CBO doesn’t score revenue forecasts.  That’s the job of the Joint Committee on Taxation, and they wouldn’t do forecasts beyond ten years.  Ryan responded to Krugman here, but more interestingly, the left-leaning Tax Policy Center* defended Ryan.  Instead of acknowledging that he made a mistake, Krugman groused.  And this is my problem with some on the hard-partisan left.  They don’t just stop at policy disagreement.  Instead, they overreach by ascribing evil or ill intentions or dishonesty to other side, which can’t but help but poison debate and discourse between right and left.  Of course, there are those on the right who aren’t innocent either, but just saying.

Ezra Klein comes across as a voice of reason.  There are indeed legitimate criticisms of Ryan’s Roadmap, and it would certainly cause a fundamental shift in taxes and spending.  But the thing is, the Roadmap is hypothetical.  It’s a proposal on a virtual blackboard.  It’s unlikely that the GOP will take regain the majority in the House this year (in my opinion), so a Ryan bill won’t be on any legislative agenda any time soon.  But even if the GOP does win enough seats, it’ll never see the light of day while Obama is in office.  So flimflam or not, the Ryan proposal is an idea that has no chance of consideration until 2013 at the very earliest.

But if Krugman wanted to see a real flimflam based on actual policy, all he’d have to do is peruse the Medicare Trustee’s report.  The board members are as follows:

• Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary
• Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor
• Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
• Michael Astrue (the Bush holdover), Commissioner of Social Security
• Vacant
• Vacant
• Donald Berwick, the man who Obama recess-appointed in a rush

But a key figure refused to endorse the report, the chief actuary of Medicare.  Why?  The folks at e21 explain:

This year, the Medicare Chief Actuary clearly did not feel he could in good conscience sign such a declaration.

A cursory review of the Trustees’ Report as well as the CMS actuary’s “illustrative alternative” projections elucidates why the official Trustees’ projections are utter fiction.

The actuary’s alternative memo explains that “the projections in the report do not represent the ‘best estimate’ of actual future Medicare expenditures.” Worse than that, they are not even in the ballpark of reasonability. The official 2010 Trustees’ Report tells us that total Medicare expenses will be total 6.37% of GDP by 2080. The CMS actuary’s alternative memorandum explains that 10.70% of GDP is a more reasonable estimate for that year – though one that is roughly 68% higher.

If the 2010 report’s projections were arguably within the range of plausibility, perhaps the actuary could have agreed to sign off on them. But this was clearly prohibited by the magnitude of the deviations from reality. (For additional perspective, consider that the previous 2009 Trustees’ Report projected that program costs by 2080 would be 11.18% of GDP – more than 75% higher than this year’s projection.)

The actuary’s memo identifies two principal reasons why the official report’s projections are so far afield from reality.

One is that the official scoring presumes that payments to Medicare physicians will decline on December 1 by 23%, followed by a further 6.5 percent decline in January, 2011, and another 2.9 percent decrease in 2012. The Obama administration and the Congressional leadership are on record as opposing these enormous payment reductions, and no one seriously expects them to happen. The Medicare actuary’s memo refers to this physician payment formula as “clearly unworkable and almost certain to be overridden by Congress.”

The other major source of projection error is the assumption, enshrined in the recent health care law, that future program cost growth will be contained by downward adjustments in annual price updates, reflecting in turn the assumption that health service productivity growth will parallel “economy-wide productivity.” The actuary states, however, that “(t)he best available evidence is that most health care providers cannot improve their productivity to this degree – or even approach this level – as a result of the labor-intensive nature of these services.”

There’s more.

Bad though all of this is, none of it is actually the worst gimmick in the official report’s advertised improvement in Medicare solvency. That involves the double-counting of Medicare savings. Earlier this year, Congress passed a health care bill containing various new Medicare taxes and constraints on program expenditures. Such savings are assumed in the official report to extend the solvency of Medicare. But Congress chose instead to spend the savings on a new health care entitlement.

The Medicare actuary wrote a memorandum on April 22 of this year calling attention to this “double-counting.” “In practice,” he stated, “the improved Part A financing cannot simultaneously be used to finance other Federal outlays (such as the coverage expansions under the PPACA) and to extend the trust fund, despite the appearance of this result from the respective accounting conventions.”

In other words, money can only be used once. Since the Medicare savings is being spent elsewhere on expanded health care coverage, it is not really being employed to extend Medicare solvency. To claim an improvement in Medicare financing is to mislead about the effects of recent legislation.

e21 cautions that the Trustee’s report has to be based on current law, no matter how implausible.  But it basically means that the 289-page document is essentially worthless.  Those who favorably cite that report on Medicare solvency are the real flimflammers.

You know a group is a cancer on society when they murder international aid workers.

Ten members of a foreign medical team — including six Americans and three women, all doctors and technicians — were shot to death on Thursday in a remote corner of the Hindu Kush in northern Afghanistan, officials confirmed Saturday.

The Taliban has a good PR apparatus, especially when civilians are killed by ISAF, but the fact remains that the Taliban is killing two out of every three civilians, according to the UN.  If we had better info ops, we’d be using this information against the militant Islamists.  General Petraeus is tightening the rules of engagement to further prevent the loss of civilian life, but at the same time, he’s letting his soldiers on the ground make the decisions.

In his directive, Petraeus tried to reassure troops of their basic right to self-defense. With a nod to the inconsistencies, he forbade lower-level officers from making his guidance stricter “without my approval,” adding, “We must give our troopers the confidence to take all necessary actions when it matters most while understanding the strategic consequences of civilian casualties.” In other words, commanding officers should not make their soldiers feel too cautious about defending themselves when necessary. And, in the event they are at risk of being overrun by enemy forces, they are allowed to forgo stringent civilian-oriented protocols to defend themselves.

[...]

General Petraeus is not the only one hustling to shape perceptions. Last week the Taliban command released its own directive calling on fighters not to harm civilians, with the exception of those working for international forces or the Afghan government (“supporters of the infidels”), who are to be executed. “The Taliban must treat civilians according to Islamic norms and morality to win over the hearts and minds of the people,” says the document, which appears to be in response to an aggressive NATO campaign to publicize how the Taliban is now responsible for most Afghan civilian deaths. But it’s not quite working. At least 43 Afghan civilians have been killed by the militants since the 69-page code of conduct was released, according to NATO, mostly from roadside and suicide bombs, including a Monday blast in Kandahar that left five children dead.

The Taliban justify the killing of Afghan civilians as mubah, which is a convenient excuse for their barbarity.  If there’s daylight between the Taliban and al Qaeda, I’m not seeing it.  Condolescences to Dr. Little, his team and their families.  They were just trying to assist poor Afghans with medical treatment.

This is an issues piece from a moderate conservative perspective.  We have a structurally imbalanced deficit, and spending restraint alone will not cut it.  We’re in the worst economy since the Great Depression.  Because of this, on social issues, I agree with Mitch Daniels:  We have more serious priorities.  I may very well be wrong, but I’m pessimistic that the GOP will regain the majority in either house, mostly because we’re moving so far to the right that we’ll lose the independent vote.  In order to win, I think a more moderate approach will help the GOP into majority status.

Economy.  At this stage, if anything, the economy needs stimulus, not austerity.  A combination of federal spending and temporary tax relief would fit the bill.  Spending would be allocated to state governments and real infrastructure projects.  The guiding principle is timely, targeted and temporary. 

Jobs.  David Frum has a piece on jobs that I half agree with.  The disagree part is that we need to induce “moderate inflation”.  I do agree with his take on regulations.  More regulation is fine for the financial sector but counterproductive in other industries.  Bottom line, I don’t see any real silver bullets for growing jobs.  Appropriate federal spending could help, and so could a more healed lending environment.  From the Puget Sound Economic Forecaster:  ”It will take 14 quarters–until mid-2013–before the region has recouped the 133,800 jobs lost during the recession.  Even then the unemployment rate will still register 7.2 percent.”  Courtesy of Davinci, adding a $1 billion to the U.S. Patent Office could generate as many as 2.25 million new jobs over the next three years.  That would be real stimulus.

Trade.  (1) Continue to lower tariffs and other trade barriers.  For example, the Brazilian tariff on ethanol has no reason for being except to protect already-subsidized cornbelt farmers.  (2) Work to establish more free trade agreements.  (3) Phase out corporate subsidies.  Farm subsidies were originally intended for family farmers, but no longer.  The camel is in the tent, or some metaphor like that. 

Taxes.  We have a structural imbalance.  The way to work closer to “balanced” is a combination of tax increases and spending restraint, to begin when economic conditions are more robust.  On taxes, the Bush tax cuts should lapse for incomes over $200,000.  The alternative minimum tax needs to be indexed, which will lower overall tax revenues, but the AMT was never intended to work its way down to the lower tax brackets. 

Social Security.  Raise the retirement age to 70.  Allow some percentage to go to personally directed accounts.  This will sound completely non-Republican, but we should increase the wage base (currently at $107,000) by an order of magnitude (it’ll have to be phased in), using some of that increase for the less-advantaged. 

Immigration.  We could use comprehensive reform.  This would entail a combination of enhanced border security and a process for illegals to become legal, such as the Z card.  The applicant pays a fee upon application and renewal.  Employers are financially hit if the immigrant does not have any sort of legal residency.  If law enforcement catches someone who is an illegal immigrant, the person is immediately deported.  Discussions about the changing the 14th Amendment are counterproductive and don’t address the root cause. 

Health care.  It’s a waste of time to try and repeal Obamacare.  The GOP should focus on taking steps to reduce the cost of health care.  After all, it was primarily health care inflation that helped create this mess. 

Afghanistan.  Let the Petraeus Plan go forward.  Reevaluate in mid-2011. 

Iraq.  The withdrawals should be conditions-based as much as possible, but there is a Strategic Framework Agreement in place, so there isn’t much wiggle room.  Our only remaining serious options are to assist with security and to use diplomacy to help the Iraqi government move in a positive direction. 

Detainees.  I don’t care if they stay at Guantanamo or are transferred to a county jail, so long as the facility is secure.  If there is uncertainty as to their status, they should appear before a competent military tribunal for a determination.  The tryable ones should be tried in military courts under the UCMJ.  The untryables should rot, but periodic reevaluations are okay.  They should all be treated humanely while under lock and key.  Interrogations per the Army Field Manual are fine. 

Iran.  There’s little we can do.  Strikes on their nuclear facilities would be counterproductive.  The only real options are sanctions and giving the Iranian people moral support. 

Pakistan.  Assist them in ridding the Taliban cancer, if they want the help.  Assist with political and economic reforms.  Good information ops are needed.  They have a virulent news media.

War Against Militant Islamism.  Continue to marginalize al Qaeda and spin-off groups.  I disagree with death warrants on American citizens, even al Awlaki. 

Israel-Palestine.  Encourage an agreement with Israel and the West Bank.  Discourage the expansion of Israeli settlements.  For Gaza, wait until Hamas loses Gaza or until Hamas recognizes Israel, which could be a long time. 

Cuba.  It’s time to lift travel and trade restrictions.  We’re already Cuba’s biggest food importer, and the Fidel reign is petering out. 

North Korea.  Wait until the current Kim dies, and hope for better luck with the next Kim.  Encourage six-party talks on nuclear weapons. 

Don’t ask, don’t tell.  Other militaries in other nations have more open policies, and their situations have worked out. 

Redefining marriage.  A matter for the states, which is basically the Cheney-Obama position. 

Abortion.  The McCain position is fine.  No federal funding.  Reasonable regulation. 

Energy.  The long-term goal should be replacement of coal-fired electricity with nuclear, wind and solar.  Also, we need to expand our energy base but fossil fuels have to make up a decreasing percentage of the total.  We should make a serious effort at thorium reactors.  A McCain-approved cap-and-trade bill would be okay.  In the shorter term, we should adopt policies that focus on conservation and efficiencies because that’s where the real progress will be made. 

Race.  Progress has been made over the past few decades, but we should recognize that the descendants of American slaves are still experiencing adverse impacts.  Poverty–and the culture of poverty–remain problems.  Generally, the best path is education advancement and helping to strengthen families.  For all races, we should encourage fathers to marry the mothers of their kids, so long as no bigamy or polygamy laws are broken. 

Education.  (1) Mend but don’t end No Child Left Behind.  Testing and accountability are okay, but there needs to be some flexibility.  In Washington State, the process was too formulaic, which put undue pressure on teachers.  (2) Make it easier to fire those teachers who truly have no business teaching.

The Tea Party.  Their principles of individual liberty, limited government and economic freedom are attractive, but most of their policy prescriptions are either ill-conceived, contradictory or ineffectual, as discussed here.  A onetime Journolista has a good perspective on the movement here.

The more I read about fast reactors, the more I like. From a Q&A with a science writer:

Most existing nuclear power plants, including all the ones operating in the US, are of a type known as a thermal reactor, they use slower neutrons. But there’s another type of nuclear reaction useful for generating power that uses faster neutrons. We’ll call those types “fast reactors”. The concerns with existing thermal reactors can be grouped into several categories, and here’s how fast reactors compare side-by-side in each.

1. Thermal reactors use expensive fuel like uranium — often mined at great cost from unstable countries which puts us in a similar bind as foreign oil — and produce nuclear waste which remains dangerous for thousands of years. Storage of that waste is either expensive, temporary, or haphazard depending on the nation in question.

Fast reactors could power this country for decades using that same waste as fuel. Fast reactors also happen to be about 100 times more efficient in converting that radioactive mass into electrical energy than thermal reactors, meaning they use relatively less fuel over time. Moreover, the waste from some types of fast reactors decays safely away in a matter of decades, making storage a far less worrisome and way less expensive proposition. And if we include the depleted uranium (DU) left over from the enrichment process, it would be something like 700 years before any more mining would be needed, once the current “thermal” types of reactors have been phased out. At the current price of energy, the existing DU alone is worth trillions in kilowatts and dollars. Nevertheless, for now, the DOE currently plans to mix the existing DU into concrete, making it rather inaccessible for use as fuel. Fast reactors would take care of that waste while providing power in the process.

2. Thermal reactors can melt down and poison the environment. Case in point, Chernobyl.

Let’s clear up one misunderstanding: a nuclear power malfunction won’t result in a city-sized mushroom cloud, and the type of reactor that caught fire at Chernobyl will never be built again. Nowadays, designs exist that will prevent that from happening even under complete power failures, inner core breaches, or suicide truck bombs for that matter (And keep in mind that a well placed bomb in the wall of a big hydroelectric dam would handily threaten lives and property, too). Chernobyl did not have those new features, plus it was a poorly designed, graphite-moderated reactor. Even then it took egregious human error and utter jaw-dropping negligence to initiate the failure. New generation fast reactors do have those design features. And it should be noted that tens of thousands of people suffer or die every year from the effects of coal, from mining accidents to exposure to toxic substances and pollutants. Nuclear sounds scary, especially for those of us who grew up with the specter of WW3 looming overhead. But even with Chernobyl and other accidents factored in, nuclear power has a far better safety record overall than traditional fuels and power plants.

3. Nuclear power plants can aid in the development of nuclear weapons.

To a degree, yes, although it isn’t quite as simple as that. But the kind of fuel used in and the waste produced by fast reactors doesn’t lend itself any better to weapons grade research or production than thermal reactors. Besides, the nations that would do the most good from a global pollutant standpoint by using fast reactors instead of fossil fuels are the US, China, and India. None of those nations need fast reactors to develop nukes, all three already have plenty of nukes.

4. Replacing a significant portion of our grid using fast reactors would be expensive and take a long time.

Maintaining and defending oil supply lines stretched halfway across the world isn’t exactly cheap. And we’re not necessarily talking about ‘replacing’ anytime soon; we’re talking about building fast reactors in the future instead of building a bunch more plants that burn coal, oil, and gas. Most importantly, the US is extremely well equipped to improve and innovate when it comes to nuclear power. We invented it, we lead in it. It happens that we have a superior fast reactor design in mind called an Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). The IFR concept has several advantages over other kinds of fast reactors, which are in turn superior to thermal reactors in part for the reasons stated above.

In fact, it makes so much sense to build a prototype fast reactor it was already proposed and funded. But whereas India is already moving ahead with plans to develop fast reactor technology, and the Chinese have purchased two Russian BN-800 fast reactors, the Clinton-Gore administration killed the prototype US IFR in 1994 years before completion. The concept has yet to be seriously revisited, let alone refunded.

To recap:
– We have available technology that eats nuclear waste,
– which means we won’t need more uranium for over half a millennia,
– which means we are sitting on a gold mine of untapped stored energy,
– AND we won’t need Yucca Mountain for waste storage,
– AND this technology generates power 100 times more efficiently than existing nuclear reactors,
– AND fast reactors add virtually no CO2 to the atmosphere.
– AND the technology is safe.

What am I missing here? Why are we not pursuing this alternative more aggressively? Maybe someone else in the Obama administration has a different answer, but the answer I’ve heard so far is…

I asked him to describe the Obama administration’s position on nuclear power, which has been murky.

“We’re thinking,” he said.

Or perhaps the better word is dithering. The thing is, all this time and money and energy is being spent on capping and reducing CO2 emissions, topped with IPCC reports and Gore documentaries and capntrade, yet here is a technology that can slash CO2 emissions. Seriously, what am I missing here?

“The irony of the underlying bill as it’s written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He’s gonna have counsel. He’s gonna be able to present evidence to rebut the government’s case…. I think we will convict him. And I think justice will be carried out.” –Senator Barack Obama, 2006, speaking in favor of a military trial for KSM.

“There are also those prisoners of war who we have captured and will capture in Afghanistan and other countries who will receive a trial of some sort. It is clear we need to try those suspects in a forum that achieves two primary goals—two goals, I might add, that may not conflict. First, the Government must have the power to use even the most sensitive classified evidence against these suspects without compromising national security in any way, shape, or form. In addition, those who commit acts of war against the United States, particularly those who have no color of citizenship, don’t deserve the same panoply of due process rights that American citizens receive. Should Osama bin Laden be captured alive—and I imagine most Americans hope he won’t be captured alive. But if he is, it is ludicrous to suggest he should be tried in a Federal court on Center Street in Lower Manhattan.” –Senator Chuck Schumer, November 2001, speaking against trying terrorists like OBL in a civilian court (and speaking ignorantly by calling detainees POWs). But eight years later, Schumer likes the idea of KSM going to Manhattan, and he likes the idea of a $75 million kicker of federal money for “extra security costs.”

“There are reasons why bringing this case in an Article III court when it comes to the admissibility of certain evidence is really the right way to go and really maximizes our chances of getting a successful outcome.” –Eric Holder, November 2009, discussing the “principle” of trying militant Islamists in civilian court with the mother of a 9/11 victim.

“If I was concerned about the forum not leading to a positive result or if I had a concern — a different concern, you know, we would perhaps be in a different place.” –Eric Holder, November 2009. Then he said it wasn’t about outcomes, then he said a “variety of factors” were involved in the decision process, and then he used the word “protocol” a lot. But not to worry, they won’t be show trials!

“Courts and commissions are both essential tools in our fight against terrorism . . . On the same day I sent these five defendants to federal court, I referred five others to be tried in military commissions. I am a prosecutor, and as a prosecutor, my top priority was simply to select the venue where the government will have the greatest opportunity to present the strongest case with the best law. . . . At the end of the day, it was clear to me that the venue in which we are most likely to obtain justice for the American people is a federal court.” –Eric Holder, November 2009, demonstrating yet again the tough time he’s having keeping his story straight.

“Failure is not an option. These are cases that have to be won. I don’t expect that we will have a contrary result.” –Eric Holder, November 2009. But if a contrary result does occur, Barry has his back…

“Let me repeat: I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture — like other prisoners of war — must be prevented from attacking us again.” –Barack Obama, May 2009. But not to worry, they won’t be show trials! Schumer has an excuse for mistakenly calling detainees POWs because he said it in November 2001 when Gitmo wasn’t yet open for business. Obama has no excuse.

“I don’t know. I’d have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I’ve made…” –Eric Holder, November 2009, trying to answer Senator Graham as to whether he knew of the existence of any cases in U.S. history where an enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court.

“I will consider that request.” –Eric Holder, November 2009, in response to Senator Grassley’s requests for a list of Justice Department lawyers who previously defended Gitmo detainees, as well as their present involvement and whether or not they recused themselves.

When you have a semi-coherent Attorney General, how can that not lead to semi-coherent policies? The man is out of his depth. Holder’s bumbling excuse-making in the wake of the Clinton pardons should have given Obama pause. Alas.

At The New Republic, Stephen Biddle asks if there’s a middle way for Afghanistan. The short answer: Not really. The gist:

The reasons vary from proposal to proposal, but the basic problem is that the pieces of COIN are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts; implementing just one or two pieces alone undermines their effectiveness. It might make sense to do less and accept a greater risk of failure, depending on one’s tolerance for risk and cost. But there is no magic middle way between the McChrystal recommendation and total withdrawal that offers comparable odds at lower cost. In counterinsurgency, less is not more.

[...]

The pieces of orthodox COIN strategy interact: security enables development and governance, development and governance enhance security, governance facilitates counterterrorism, counterterrorism improves security, security enables negotiation and reconciliation. Each is a valuable complement to the others; none is a viable substitute. Integrated COIN is itself no guarantee of success. Social scientists have estimated its success rate at somewhere between 25 and 70 percent at best. But middle ways are even less promising because they lack the key enablers of an integrated strategy and the synergies that result.

At Small Wars Journal, Tony Corn’s thesis hangs on the phrase that “counterinsurgency is 80 percent political, 20 percent military,” and in that vein he explores the political situation. He approvingly cites a suggestion made by fellow CFRer Daniel Markey:

Washington’s officials and pundits have a tendency to underestimate the importance of politics in Afghanistan, focusing instead on troop levels and budgetary expenditures as the primary measures of progress or failure. This is a mistake; a lasting victory in this war can only be won in partnership with Afghans, and victory over the Taliban will require a combination of state capacity and popular legitimacy. Since Afghan state capacity is likely to be in short supply for the foreseeable future, legitimacy will be all the more necessary to achieve success. It’s now clear that the massively rigged presidential election will neither confer legitimacy on the victor, nor turn the unpopular incumbent out of office-a double failure.

.. Instead of tinkering at the margins, Washington and its international partners should seize this opportunity to press Kabul to organize a second constitutional convention, or loya jirga. Like the last convention in 2003, it would bring together elected and traditional leaders from throughout Afghanistan to ratify a new structure for democratic governance. A second loya jirga offers at least three potential benefits.

First, by reopening the door to nationwide participation in a meaningful political debate, a new constitutional convention might help to reenergize the Afghan public, shift the political momentum away from the Taliban, and offer an alternative to “more of the same” in Kabul. For Afghans who have become increasingly demoralized by the corrupt and ineffective practices of their government, a convention provides a forum for venting grievances that went unaddressed by the flawed presidential election process. And even if a convention is closed to Taliban representation per se, the meeting could still provide an opportunity for the reconciliation and political empowerment of Afghanistan’s most conservative Pashtun tribes — a necessary step for ending the insurgency.

…Second, a convention could address debilitating institutional problems enshrined in the current Afghan constitution. The present system is marked by dominant presidential authority, weak political parties, and limited democratic accountability at the provincial level. Few new democratic states have succeeded with such centralized governing structures, especially in countries wracked by civil conflict.

…Third, a convention might offer a fresh start for the United States and the rest of the international community involved in Afghanistan. A bold new political initiative in Kabul would complement Washington’s new counterinsurgency strategy, new military leadership, and renewed commitment to the war effort. Recent European proposals to pull together another international conference on Afghanistan also suggest a desire to re-engage NATO allies and bolster confidence in the mission.

Makes sense. Better a loyal jirga than an ineffectual president (Karzai, not Obama). But beyond that, I think Corn’s misgivings about COIN are off the mark, in particular his views on footprints (see below on the Marines in Nawa) and that the McChrystal plan is “armed social engineering”. I also think some of the choices he presents are false ones. An example: “Given the choice, wouldn’t you rather see al Qaeda in the Afghan sandbox than in nuclear-armed Pakistan?” Yes, al Qaeda is in Pakistan but that doesn’t mean they are any closer to accessing the nuclear arsenal than they would be if they were in Afghanistan. His conclusion is a sort of hybrid: Go with the surge in forces but follow up with some sort of Kilcullen-Biden plan. However, anyone should be skeptical of a plan with the name “Biden” in it, Republican or Democrat or anyone who isn’t a dumbass, which I’m guessing is one reason why Corn hyphenated the name. The WSJ:

People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach — prompting members of Mr. Biden’s staff to step in and write the document themselves.

As Bill Roggio put it:

In case that wasn’t clear, not a single strategist in the Pentegon was willing to draft a paper to defend the Biden plan. No one wanted to put their name on the document. So, members of Biden’s staff — political appointees — had to write the brief.

Steve Coll also addresses the political sphere here. The final paragraphs:

To improve its chances for success, the United States and the international community must bring all of their leverage to bear to ensure the formation of a coalition government in Kabul that incorporates all of the meaningful sources of non-Taliban opposition and sets Afghan political and tribal leaders on a sustained, Afghan-led program of political, constitutional, and electoral reform.

Some analysts have suggested invoking the Afghan institution of a loya jirga to host some or all of this continuous reform process. Whether that specific institution is selected or not, the spirit of this suggestion is critical — Afghans have many difficult but important political and constitutional issues to negotiate, and political business-as-usual will not carry these negotiations forward adequately at a time when the United States is risking blood and treasure in support of Afghan stability. Issues that require discussion and negotiation among Afghan leaders, both formal and informal, include the future of the electoral system, to ensure fraud on the scale alleged in the most recent election cannot recur; political party formation and activity; constitutional issues such as the election of governors and the role of parliament; and issues of national integrity such as the access of different ethnic, tribal and identity groups to government employment and opportunity in the expanding security services.

Political reform and Afghan-led negotiations of this type must be seen as fundamental to American policy in Afghanistan no matter what choices are made about troop levels and deployments. Such a process would be part and parcel, too, of national program of reconciliation and reintegration designed to provide ways for Taliban foot soldiers to find jobs and for their leaders to forswear violence and enter politics.

This emphasis on political stability through continuous Afghan-led negotiation and national reintegration, as opposed to grandiose state-building or policies premised on the pursuit of military victory by external forces, should not be seen as an adjunct wing of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, but as fundamental. It is clear that no realistic level of American and Afghan forces deployable in the foreseeable future can provide security to the population in every village of Afghanistan. Accepting this reality and developing a political-military strategy that best accounts for it will lead, inevitably, to support for Afghan-led political approaches at the national, provincial, district and sub-district level. This is how the late Gorbachev-backed government in Kabul achieved a modicum of stability in far less favorable circumstances.

America’s record of policy failure in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the last 30 years should humble all of us. It should bring humility to the way we define our goals and realism about the means required to achieve them. It should lead us to choose political approaches over kinetic military ones, urban population security over provocative rural patrolling, and Afghan and Pakistani solutions over American blueprints. But it should not lead us to defeatism or to acquiescence in a violent or forcible Taliban takeover of either country. We have the means to prevent that, and it is in our interest to do so.

Concerning the problems of Karzai and the Afghans, Max Boot has some observations:

The worst thing the Obama administration could do is throw up its hands in despair and claim we can’t win in Afghanistan because of Karzai’s problems. In fact, every counterinsurgency effort in history has faced a problem of governmental legitimacy; if the government were generally accepted as legitimate and efficient, there would be no insurgency to begin with. Enhancing governmental credibility is a tough task but by no means a mission impossible — we’ve helped achieve that outcome in countries as varied as Greece, the Philippines, and El Salvador. We can do it in Afghanistan, too, if we work behind the scenes with Karzai to rectify some of his government’s shortcomings.

Andrew Exum from Abu Muqawama offers three scenarios for Afghanistan. An interesting paragraph:

Aid in Afghanistan, meanwhile, should be shifted away from large-scale development projects and toward those projects that address issues – such as irrigation rights and land disputes – driving conflict at the local level. U.S. military units in southern and and eastern Afghanistan have already begun such efforts. But for this reason, conducting a census and building a land registry are more important in many areas than building schools and hospitals. It is difficult, in fact, to overestimate the degree to which these two measures would stabilize the country. Such efforts support the establishment of the rule of law and enable ISAF and Afghan units to resolve disputes the Afghan people currently rely on the insurgent “shadow” government to adjudicate.

Major Jim Gant has a 45-page piece on a tribal approach, which I think is worthy for those tribes who have not had their structures trashed by the Taliban, and it’s a worthy counterpoint to Tony Corn’s “solution”. Some paragraphs on the Taliban:

While most of the Taliban are from Pashtun tribes, the tribes themselves are not the enemy. The Taliban, al-Qaeda, HIG (Hezb-e Islami), Haqqani and other insurgent networks are the tribes’ enemy—-our enemy.

The Taliban find many willing recruits among disaffected tribesmen. The Taliban offer fame, glory and the chance to live exciting, meaningful (to them) lives. Many recruits see the Taliban as their only way to survive: Kill as a Taliban or be killed by the Taliban. “By 2006 village jihadists accounted for 15 to 25 percent of the Taliban’s active fighting strength at any given time.” (Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, Giustozzi, p. 43)

Our Tribal Engagement Teams (TET) can get inside this disaffection/recruitment cycle and show the tribes that our teams (and by extension, the Coalition Forces and the Afghan central government) are there to help them. If we give them a better alternative—show them that we are their friends and are committed for the long haul—they will not only not attack us, but will be more willing to share intelligence and even come back home and fight for their tribe.

Taliban assassination teams have killed more than 120 tribal leaders in the past two years alone, and through intimidation driven many more away from their home districts. The practice of delivering “night letters”—written death threats—on tribal leaders’ doorsteps is extremely effective. It’s gangland, Afghan style. But the tribes are not all taking this passively; many are arming and organizing on their own, without US help.

Along those tribal lines, Max Boot was embedded with the Marines for a short while, and he reports on their endeavors in Helmand province:

Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, is walking me around the center of Nawa, a poor, rural district in southern Afghanistan’s strategically vital Helmand River Valley. His Marines, who now number more than 1,000, arrived in June to clear out the Taliban stronghold. Two weeks of hard fighting killed two Marines and wounded 70 more but drove out the insurgents. Since then the colonel’s men, working with 400 Afghan soldiers and 100 policemen, have established a “security bubble” around Nawa.

Colonel McCollough recalls that when they first arrived the bazaar was mostly shuttered and the streets empty. “This town was strangled by the Taliban,” he says. “Anyone who was still here was beaten, taxed or intimidated.”

Today, Nawa is flourishing. Seventy stores are open, according to the colonel, and the streets are full of trucks and pedestrians. Security is so good we were able to walk around without body armor — unthinkable in most of Helmand, the country’s most dangerous province. The Marines are spending much of their time not in firefights but in clearing canals and building bridges and schools. On those rare occasions when the Taliban try to sneak back in to plant roadside bombs, the locals notify the Marines.

It looks like Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran was there at around the same time. A key measure of success there will be whether or not the townsfolk give us intelligence on Taliban activity.

Speaking of the Taliban, Peter Bergen writes about their merger with al Qaeda.

Today, at the leadership level, the Taliban and Al Qaeda function more or less as a single entity. The signs of this are everywhere. For instance, IED attacks in Afghanistan have increased dramatically since 2004. What happened? As a Taliban member told Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau of Newsweek, “The Arabs taught us how to make an IED by mixing nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel and how to pack plastic explosives and to connect them to detonators and remote-control devices like mobile phones. We learned how to do this blindfolded so we could safely plant IEDs in the dark.” Another explained that “Arab and Iraqi mujahedin began visiting us, transferring the latest IED technology and suicide-bomber tactics they had learned in the Iraqi resistance.” Small numbers of Al Qaeda instructors embedded with much larger Taliban units have functioned something like U.S. Special Forces do–as trainers and force multipliers.

Meanwhile, the Taliban, like Al Qaeda, has tried to attack the West. According to Spanish prosecutors, the late and unlamented leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, dispatched suicide bombers on a botched mission to Barcelona in January 2008. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar confirmed this in August during a videotaped interview in which he said that those bombers “were under pledge to Baitullah Mehsud.” The point is not that the Taliban is going to mount a widespread campaign of terrorism in the West–it isn’t–but simply that the Taliban’s approach to combat has increasingly merged with Al Qaeda’s.

The Taliban has borrowed more than just violent techniques from bin Laden’s group. The Pakistani Taliban has an active video-propaganda operation that mimics Al Qaeda’s video wing. In fact, the output of the two is often interchangeable–indicating that Taliban and Al Qaeda operations are conducted jointly. Ben Venzke of IntelCenter, a government contractor that closely monitors jihadist propaganda, reports that “a growing number of Pakistani Taliban people are showing up in Al Qaeda productions.”

One of the key leaders of the Afghan Taliban as it surged in strength in 2006 was Mullah Dadullah, a thuggish but effective commander who was quite upfront about his close links to Al Qaeda. “Osama bin Laden, thank God, is alive and in good health,” he told CBS in December 2006. “We are in contact with his top aides and sharing plans and operations with each other.” Dadullah would later claim that bin Laden himself had supervised a Taliban suicide operation targeting Dick Cheney during his visit to Afghanistan in February 2007.

This summer, Mustafa Abu Al Yazid, one of Al Qaeda’s founders and a current member of its leadership council, described his group’s rapport with the Taliban during an interview with Al Jazeera in Afghanistan. “We are on a good and strong relationship with them,” he explained, “and we frequently meet them.” He also said that his organization continues to regard Mullah Omar as the “Commander of the Faithful”–in effect acknowledging that the Taliban leader is Al Qaeda’s religious guide, a position he has enjoyed for the past decade.

Bergen cites none other than al Zawahiri as to why they’re embedded with the Taliban:

But it isn’t just a safe haven that Al Qaeda wants; it is a state. As Zawahiri explained shortly after September 11 in his autobiographical Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, “Confronting the enemies of Islam, and launching jihad against them require a Muslim authority, established on a Muslim land that raises the banner of jihad and rallies the Muslims around it. Without achieving this goal our actions will mean nothing.” No wonder Al Qaeda remains so committed to Afghanistan–and so deeply invested in helping the Taliban succeed.

Herschel Smith discusses the Taliban-al Qaeda alignments, quoting NYT journalist David Rohde, who was kidnapped by Talibaners:

Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.

Last Saturday, Bill Roggio wrote about a drone strike in Bajaur that killed 27 Taliban and al Qaeda. There is no doubt that these strikes are effective militarily, but what about politically? To me, they are a net setback. Marc Ambinder touches on the issue here.

Meanwhile, in the western world, NATO approves the McChrystal plan while General George Casey has his doubts. Left unsaid was Casey’s opposition to the surge strategy in Iraq.

As part of Operation Dither, the Pentagon is war-gaming a couple of scenarios. So why still the dither meme? Partly because when senior people in the Obama administration said that the Bush administration had no plan for Afghanistan, they were lying.

In fact, the Bush administration did ask those questions. From mid-September to mid-November 2008, a National Security Council team, under the direction of General Doug Lute, conducted an exhaustive review of Afghanistan policy. The interagency group included high-ranking officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the office of the director of national intelligence, the office of the vice president, the Pentagon, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its objective was to assess U.S. -policy on Afghanistan, integrating a simultaneous military review being conducted by CENTCOM, so as to present President Bush with a series of recommendations on how best to turn around the deteriorating situation there. The Lute group met often–sometimes twice daily–in a secure conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. (The group used the room so frequently that other national security working groups that had been meeting there were required to find other space including, occasionally, the White House Situation Room.)

The Lute review asked many questions and provided exhaustive answers not only to President Bush, but also to the Obama transition team before the inauguration. “General Jones was briefed on the results of the Lute review, and that review answered many of the questions that Rahm Emanuel says were never asked,” says Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley. Jones and Hadley discussed the review, and Lute gave Jones a detailed PowerPoint presentation on his findings. Among the recommendations: a civilian surge of diplomats and other non-military personnel to the country, expedited training for the Afghan National Army, a strong emphasis on governance and credible elections, and, most important, a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy.

Jones asked Hadley not to release the results of the Lute review so that his boss would have more flexibility when it came time to provide direction for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Bush officials reasoned that Obama was more likely to heed their advice if he could simply adopt their recommendations without having to acknowledge that they came from the Bush White House. So Hadley agreed.

The Obama team had a strategy right out of the starting gete, and they were briefed on it prior to inauguration. They could’ve easily adopted it, and put a few wrinkles in it so they could call it their own. But they didn’t. Why? Perhaps ego? Here’s what a Pentagon spokesman said about the Lute review:

Yeah, again, I think this may be best directed to the White House, but I’ll give you my sense of it, because we are obviously a stakeholder in all this. That the — the only review, as I’ve said to you before, that I believe counts is the one the president has asked for and that is being chaired by Bruce Riedel. It’s being co- — vice-chaired by our undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy, and the new envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Holbrooke.

They, as you may have noticed from the different honor cordons and dignitaries that have been walking around this building over the past week or so, have been reaching out to — in particular lately to the Afghan and Pakistan leadership. We had Minister Wardak, the Defense minister of Afghanistan, in town. We had Minister Atmar, the Interior minister of Afghanistan, in town. General Kayani, the chief of staff of the Pakistani army, was in town. And they worked for a number of hours with the — some members of the policy review team, providing their input to this process.

I noticed that the White House announced that Vice President Biden is traveling to Brussels next week to talk with NATO about the Af-Pak review. This is all part of these ongoing efforts to make this as inclusive and collaborative as possible.

So in terms of where we stand in that process, I can tell you the secretary got his first briefing on sort of this — the status of it today, this morning. As far as I know, I don’t have any news for you in terms of when this will be unveiled, other than the fact, I think, that everybody has made clear that by the time the president goes to the NATO summit in Strasbourg, that the expectation is that he will be able to lay out to the allies the way ahead in Afghanistan. But I think there is considerable work to be done between now and then.

I don’t know if that’s helpful — oh, in terms of where General Petraeus’s efforts and the Lute efforts fit into all this, as you know, General Lute was the point person in the Bush White House or the Bush NSC for Iraq and Afghanistan. He worked closely with our former assistant secretary of Defense for Asia, Jim Shinn, and our assistant secretary for SOLIC, Mike Vickers, who remains in the job, on formulating that plan for the Bush White House.

It was never unveiled. And it was passed on to the Obama folks and they, I assume, have evaluated it and are making judgments about what, if any, of it they wish to incorporate.

The Petraeus CENTCOM review, I think, has come to completion. I think it’s in the process of being briefed and ultimately being wrapped up. And I think that review will inform the Riedel- Flournoy-Holbrooke review. It is another means of improving that product.

But I think, ultimately, the product that will steer the policy of the United States of America with regards to Afghanistan will be the White House review.

So the Lute review was basically discarded because it came from the previous administration. Kristofer Harrison was involved in the Lute review, and he had this to say:

I was involved in the the Bush administration’s 2008 Afghanistan review and it was every bit as in depth and serious as the one several years earlier for Iraq. It involved many of the same people who helped conduct Gen. McChrystal’s recent review and included Democrats, Republicans, our British allies, Afghans, etc. The strategy put forward was sound and competent, and carbon-copy similar to the one that President Obama announced in March.

It is also true that team Obama was briefed on this review before assuming office. In fact, we began briefing both campaigns even before the election. I don’t remember the dates, but well before the election we began bringing together the national security teams from both campaigns for in-depth briefing sessions under the auspices of the Aspen Institute. These were long events where Bush administration cabinet-level officials spent days — yes, days — briefing the two candidates’ advisers. After the election we began spending hours with the transition team on the details of the plan and the situation on the ground.[/b]

It is also true that Obama’s transition team asked us to hold the Afghanistan review findings, a request to which President Bush acquiesced because (as it was relayed to me) he did not want to box the new president into a narrow set of options. In March, when Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy, I did not notice a single change from the new plan that we had given him…only Obama did not resource it with enough troops.

Obama had a plan on hand on Day One if he chose to take it, but he wasn’t ready.

I haven’t read much of Bruce Ackerman, and after persuing this, I can say that I haven’t missed a thing. His basic thesis is that General McChrystal is insubordinate because he disagrees with the Biden Magic Secret Ninja Plan, that the general supports the plan that he created, and that the 66-page report was leaked to the Washington Post. What a ridiculous article.

McChrystal differed with the vice president (who I’m pretty sure is not the commander-in-chief), not the president. What McChrystal said in London was nothing different than what he said in his 66-page report, that a drawdown of troops would lead to mission failure. Why would Ackerman want to muzzle a general from saying something that has already been made public? Also, Ackerman’s claim that McChrystal did not support the Biden option is misleading. According to his own link, McChrystal said that the “narrower” option would not succeed. There’s a difference between concepts. The former (what Ackerman wrote) implies insubordination while the latter is an honest assessment of an alternative plan. Ackerman is basically saying, “How dare the U.S. Commander answer questions!” I remember when the Left approved when generals spoke their mind.

As for the leak of the report, it was going to leak one way or the other. Afghanistan is the “war of necessity”, after all. There is no way such an important document would stay hidden, especially when it’s been sitting on Obama’s desk for weeks with no action taken.

By blaming the general, Ackerman takes a pass on blaming The Big Ditherer for his dithering. The buck is supposed to stop you know where. During the campaign, Obama basically lied to the American people when he said he had a “comprehensive strategy to succeed in Afghanistan.” He had no plan and no clue. He dithered for two months before deciding that a COIN strategy was the way to go. He dithered with McKiernan, then he tasked McChrystal to draft a plan for succeeding. The general did so, and Obama still can’t find his “absolute clarity.” Or his spine.

Implicit in my support of the mission in Afghanistan–in addition to having more troops and a workable strategy–is that they have a president who doesn’t steal elections. Given the amount of fraud already discovered, Hamid Karzai does not deserve outright victory:

Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.

Vote fraud in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps up to one million, and the vast majority was committed by Karzai supporters:

The commission’s decision is significant: The western officials estimated that the number of fraudulent votes could top 1 million, meaning that if they were thrown out, Karzai would almost certainly receive fewer than 50 percent of the vote, forcing him into a runoff with his main challenger, former Karzai minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Much is riding on the Election Complaints Commission, which is “dominated by Westerners appointed by the United Nations.” In a follow-up, they ordered a recount of tainted ballots. Given the breadth of this corruption, the Afghan people deserve a runoff, and let the chips fall where they may.

George Will started and ended his piece with a personal story of a Marine who experienced emotional trauma. The part that I take issue with (among others) is this:

Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen’s, is squandered.

Have Allen’s efforts and valor been squandered? George Will made his conclusion, but to me it is an open question. If General McChrystal’s strategy for Afghanistan helps produce a successful outcome for Afghanistan (and by extension Pakistan), then to me the answer for Allen is “no”.

To Will, the benefit of denying the Taliban the ability to retake Afghanistan isn’t worth the cost. To me, it’s worth trying. For one, the Taliban have openly stated that they would give al Qaeda safe harbor, and they are doing that very thing in Pakistan, the “nation that actually matters.” For another, giving up Afghanistan means accepting a more unstable western Pakistan because the Taliban would control a larger area of operations. To me, the Taliban is a cancer, made all apparent in the Swat Valley (Roggio has more here), and it’s a cancer that should be destroyed, not pestered with pinprick drones.

Will is short on some facts, as Fred Kagan explains. And Will is also short on will, especially considering that there’s only 7,000 to 11,000 Taliban in Afghanistan.

Marines on the front lines in southern Afghanistan say there’s no question that the militants are just as deadly as the Iraqi insurgents they once fought in Iraq’s Anbar Province. The Afghan enemy is proving to be a smaller, but smarter opponent, taking full advantage of the country’s craggy and enveloping terrain in eluding and then striking at U.S troops.

In interviews, Marines across Helmand said their new foes are not as religiously fanatic as the Syrian and Chechen militants they fought in Iraq and often tend to be hired for battle. U.S. commanders call them the “$10 Taliban.”

Taking advantage of the Afghanistan’s mountainous rural landscape, the fighters often spread out their numbers, hiding in fields and planting bombs on roads, rather than taking aim at U.S. forces from snipers’ nests in urban settings, as often was the case in Iraq. And they are not as bent on suicide, often retreating to fight another day.

“One thing about Afghanistan, they’re not trying to go to paradise,” said Sgt. Robert Warren, 26, of Peshtigo, Wis. He served a tour in both Iraq and Afghanistan before his current assignment at Combat Outpost Sharp, a Marines camp hidden in cornfields and dirt piles.

“They want to live to see tomorrow,” Warren said. “They engage with us, but when they know we’ll call in air support, they’ll break contact with us. … They’re just as fierce, but they’re smarter.”

Marine commanders believe they face between 7,000 and 11,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, although it is unclear how many are low-level militants hired for battle as opposed to extremist leaders.

The “ten-dollar Taliban” aren’t religious fanatics, and they’re the ones who can be turned.

Like I said with Iraq back in early 2007, the strategy that General Petraeus developed was a sound one and it deserved a chance. Fortunately, it got that chance and the situation turned around while the strategy was in effect.

The problem with Obama is that he didn’t have a coherent plan when he took office, just preferred outcomes, and it took almost eight months to find the right general to come up with the right strategy (more or less). Part of that strategy will likely include more troops. Like with Petraeus, I think McChrystal deserves a fair shot to see if it’ll work. George Will would rather throw in the towel, and I find his defeatism unfortunate. Michael Yon has a piece on his experiences with the British, and he hasn’t given up. The basic gist is that more soldiers and helicopters are needed. Anthony Cordesman is another who’s been following Afghanistan much closer than Will. He explains what went wrong and how to avoid the defeat that Will has resigned himself to. Joshua Foust makes a good case starting here (Part II of the series here). The key paragraphs:

It is possible that scaling back American influence in the country merely to that of an advisory and arms dealing role—much as the Soviet Union did post-1989—might be effective. Indeed, it very well might… for a little bit. But this is where it becomes impossible to ignore Pakistan (and not just for the shallow reason that al Qaeda is hiding in an ungoverned space in the Northwest). Pakistan has not lost its fundamental strategic rationale for supporting the original Taliban: a hedge against Iran, “strategic depth” against India, and a training ground for Kashmiri insurgents. In fact, it could be easily argued that a big reason Kashmir has calmed down is that all the crazies were too busy fighting in Miram Shah and Kandahar and Khost and Ghazni to go plant bombs in Srinagar.

And lest anyone think it is appropriate to write off the India-Pakistan conflict as somebody else’s problem, it is never somebody else’s problem when nuclear weapons are involved. As Jari Lindholm reminded, India and Pakistan have come a hair’s breadth from nuclear conflict twice over Kashmir. And like it or not, it is a compelling and vital American interest to prevent nuclear conflict in South Asia—which makes “fixing” Afghanistan in some way also a vital American interest.

Regional security is one of those topics that gets mentioned casually by many pundits but never really articulated. It is by far Ahmed Rashid’s most convincing argument, that supporting stability in Central and South Asia is a compelling interest not just for the U.S., but for the West in general.

When it comes to Pakistan, the big danger is not in a Taliban takeover, or even in the Taliban seizure of nuclear weapons—I have never believed that the ISI could be that monumentally stupid (though they are incredibly stupid for letting things get this far out of hand). The big danger, as it has been since 1999, is that insurgents, bored or underutilized in Afghanistan, will spark another confrontation between India and Pakistan, and that that confrontation will spillover into nuclear conflict. That is worth blood and treasure to prevent.

When Afghanistan was a sanctuary for destabilizing elements—whether Chechens training to go fight Russia, Juma Namangani training to go fight Tashkent, or even Osama bin Laden training his men to go fight America—the region as a whole was a serious security concern. The reason why so many books and articles condemning the Clinton administration’s stand-offish attitude have been so popular is because that message resonates—how could you not have seen this coming?

While things have undoubtedly become more violent, they are also, in a way, more ordered. The insurgency in Afghanistan is a difficult and frustrating enemy to fight, more so the insurgency in Pakistan. But both are identifiable, and are capable therefore of being defeated or delegitimized. The fact that the U.S. has chosen not to do this is the topic for another post (and the source of the tremendous frustration and borderline burnout I’ve been struggling with the last few months). But right now, the major security concerns are compelling, they are fairly clear to me at least, and I am completely baffled as to why even the war supporters cannot articulate them.

So, let us summarize the strategic goals of the Afghanistan War:

1. A basic minimal stability in Afghanistan, such that neither the Taliban nor al Qaeda is likely to develop a staging ground for international attacks, whether against neighboring countries or the United States and Europe;

2. The permanent delegitimization of Pakistan’s insurgents, such that they can no longer push Pakistan and India toward nuclear conflict;

I find both of those convincing reasons to stay and do things right.

So do I. Andrew Exum has a good perspective as well.

Exhibit A:

A powerful bomb killed more than 75 people Wednesday night at a market in Sadr City, Baghdad’s main Shiite neighborhood, casting doubt on the readiness of Iraq’s security forces to keep a latent insurgency in check as U.S. troops pull out of the capital and other cities.

The blast, the second in Iraq in less than a week to kill more than 70 people, happened six days before the June 30 deadline for U.S. troops to retreat from urban outposts, the first of three withdrawal deadlines mandated under a security agreement.

The most likely suspect is al Qaeda, in my opinion, although this wasn’t a suicide blast. It fits their MO, and their stated intention has been to trigger a civil war. But no matter who did it, it is apparent to me that the pre-scribed reduction of embedded American forces is opening the door to more terrorist attacks.

I blame primarily al Maliki for allowing this situation, but lock-step with al Maliki regarding artificial withdrawal timetables is President Barack Obama. Al Maliki never was a big fan of the Sons of Iraq, even though they helped stamp out a significant amount of al Qaeda violence. And now that the Iraqi prime minister has a stronger hand, the door has been opening to increased violence, intimidation and attacks. That was the risk of leaving too quickly.

As Herschel Smith notes, the Taliban use the tactic of amassing fighters for strikes, ranging from 100 to 400 militants, usually in places where our footprint is light. American forces are commonly outnumbered ten-to-one, which necessitates close air support. However, that close air support has resulted in an uncomfortably high number of civilian casualties and a loss of the information battlespace. We lost the information battle in Farah province and Admiral Mullen knows it. Smith:

It is fairly well known now that the additional troops deployed to Afghanistan are going to the population centers around Kabul and Kandahar – of course, in a tip of the hat to population centric counterinsurgency doctrine. So the balance of Afghanistan is left to the Taliban to raise revenue, recruit fighters, train, interdict our logistics lines, implement their governance and basically control as they see fit.

Then, since the U.S. is massing troops in and around the population centers, far fewer are left for the rural terrain. The most that can usually be accomplished is squad, platoon and company-sized engagements, or even smaller units to embed with the Afghan forces. This is very close to what is considered distributed operations. Few patrols in Taliban-controlled areas, no ensuring that the Taliban feel the strong presence of forces, just bare minimum to “train” the Afghan forces.

Yet when the Taliban are able to mass forces of as much as half a Battalion, the expectation is that much smaller units of U.S. forces will engage them without causing noncombatant casualties, while at the same time, the Taliban are clearly using human shields.

Clearly, we are asking the impossible of U.S. troops. The Obama administration doesn’t want to deploy more than about 68,000 U.S. troops to the theater, and as long as this small footprint obtains, heavy use of air power will be necessary to keep smaller units from being completely overrun when the Taliban mass troops.

There is a solution to this dilemma, but it requires more troops to disengage the Taliban from the population. The number of troops we have at the moment is not enough to do this mission. Hence, while noncombatant casualties are a sad thing and certainly counterproductive, the answer is not to inform the smaller units of U.S. forces that they cannot use air support. As much as The Captain’s Journal hates to see noncombatant casualties, more Marines and Soldiers in coffins would be much worse.

If Barack Obama truly wants to minimize the loss of American military and Afghan civilian lives, we need more than 68,000 troops in the Afghan theater. A doubling of that number would be nice.

A Special Forces guy with the name of Dalton Fury sounds almost cliche. Nick Fury is cliche, but Dalton Fury is a real soldier and he knows LT Gen Stanley McChrystal, the newly appointed U.S. NATO commander in Afghanistan. After reading the article, if I were to describe McChrystal in one word, that word would be badass. Whether he’s the right man for the job, I’ll reserve judgment, but he sounds as good as any.

If Barack Obama doesn’t want to be known as President Halfass in this WAMI, he should be sending more troops to Afghanistan, as Herschel Smith makes clear:

There has been robust debate among counterinsurgency experts over where to deploy the additional troops, or even what justification to use for more troops.

Here is the justification. Until we deploy the right number of troops in the places where the Taliban have sanctuary, rest, recruit, raise their revenue, and interdict our lines of logistics, we will not bring this campaign to a satisfactory outcome. Deployment of additional troops to ensure that Hamid Karzai continues to be the mayor of Kabul doesn’t help anything.

There is a huge and time sensitive problem with force size and lines of logistics. But despite what the counterinsurgency experts are saying, until and unless we deploy enough troops in the places where the Taliban roam, we will not succeed.

Smith linked to Patrick Cockburn, one of the chief apologists for Muqtada al Sadr, but if he’s having trouble getting around Afghanistan, I’ll take his word for it.

Speaking of the AfPak theater, Greg Bruno at CFR writes about the information war:

With overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to hold the edge. The gap has grown especially wide in the Afghan war zone, analysts say. Using FM transmitters, the Internet, and threatening notes known as “night letters” (TIME), Taliban operating from the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven effective at either cowing citizens or winning them over to their message of jihad.

The Taliban is better at getting its message out than the most prosperous nation in human history. Something’s wrong with this picture. We definitely lost the information battle after the May 4th airstrikes in Funar province, when 140 civilians were reportedly killed. It won’t matter if it turns out that the death toll is less than 140, or that some of those numbers were militants, or that the Taliban killed some or most of those civilians. That mediaspace was lost. One way to keep from losing these information battles is to cut way back on drone strikes and air strikes. On drone attacks, David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum make a convincing case.

For the folks who have tried to equate the Soviet occupation to the current NATO presence, Bruce Reidel offers a history lesson, but there is one similarity: the role played by Pakistan, more specifically, the ISI. Along those lines, maybe AfPak should be PakAf, since most of the militant Islamists and leaders are in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Meantime, the civil war in Pakistan has caused the internal displacement of 1.5 million. No wonder the ISI is hedging.

DHS chief Janet Napolitano appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday, and it was a man-caused disaster. She announced that DHS was withdrawing its report on “rightwing extremism”, but not without some buck-passing:

“An employee sent it out without authorization.”

That would be her unnamed employee who did that. A person who actually had political courage would have taken responsibility for distributing such a thing, but not Janet. Then she tried to spin her way out:

“It was an assessment, not an accusation.”

But Pennsylvania Democrat Christopher Carney would have none of it:

“It didn’t say that.”

So Napolitano backtracked:

“That’s right,” Ms. Napolitano responded. “That is why it should not have gone out.”

Later on, Napolitano was caught in a falsehood:

It had not even completed its vetting process within the department.

Untrue. Civil rights employees in her own department had already vetted the report and found it wanting. Despite their objections, it was pushed out the door, and the rest is history. Unlike the earlier “leftwing extremism” report, the “rightwing extremism” report mentioned no actual threats and identified no specific groups with histories of violent action. Those groups are out there, and I don’t doubt that they have attempted to recruit military veterans, among others. But instead, the DHS report defined “rightwing extremist” so broadly that any single-issue advocate or veteran could be perceived as a violent threat to the U.S. It was fact-starved nonsense.

Napolitano did say that “appropriate personnel action is being taken,” which I suppose is a good thing, but I would suggest that President Obama take appropriate personnel action and fire her ass.

In a piece a couple of Sundays ago by a Pakistani BBC correspondent on how the Pakistanis are caving to the Taliban, these paragraphs popped out:

In Swat, I heard the same story again and again: Before the peace deal, soldiers would stop people at checkpoints and say, “Don’t go that way, the Taliban are slitting someone’s throat.” But they wouldn’t intercede to stop the throat-slitting.

The problem, as many see it, is that there’s no alternative. Yes, the Taliban routinely place near the bottom of opinion polls, and in elections they garner less than 10 percent of the vote. But we seem to be an exhausted society, incapable of rising to this challenge.

When we look overseas for support, we are confronted by the Americans demanding that we oppose the Taliban even as U.S. drones continue to kill impoverished civilians in the remote-controlled hunt for Taliban officials and the latest al-Qaeda No. 3. There is not a single Pakistani who supports these attacks or the way they are being conducted. They have made being pro-American radioactive. And they have also made opposing the Taliban that much more difficult.

Australian military advisor David Kilcullen has a similar take on drones.

Kilcullen’s objection to the U.S. strategy isn’t moral (he doesn’t mind killing “bad guys”) or legal (most legal scholars consider “targeted killing” acceptable under the law of war because Al Qaeda and the Taliban are at war with the United States). Kilcullen’s objection is practical. He says the strikes are creating more enemies than they eliminate.

“I realize that they do damage to the Al Qaeda leadership,” he told the House Armed Services Committee. But that, he said, was not enough to justify the program. “Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they’ve given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. … The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population.”

Another problem, Kilcullen says, is that “using robots from the air … looks both cowardly and weak.”

In the Pashtun tribal culture of honor and revenge, face-to-face combat is seen as brave; shooting people with missiles from 20,000 feet is not. And besides, Kilcullen says, “There are other ways to do it.”

While a Taliban tactician said the drone attacks were “effective”, which was what Max Boot keyed on, the Pashtun also said this:

He acknowledged that the Americans would have far superior forces and power this year, but was confident that the Taliban could turn this advantage on its head. “The Americans cannot take control of the villages,” he said. “In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties.”

Translation: The drone attacks work militarily but they fail politically. Since we cannot win this War Against Militant Islamism by military means alone, the drone attacks help us win the skirmishes but help us lose the larger conflict. Kilcullen didn’t specify what those “other ways” are for taking out militant Islamists, but utilize them we should. The Taliban and al Qaeda and related groups know how to exploit the media, and the drone attacks have become propaganda opportunities. The latest from the New York Times is an example:

Chanting “Death to America” and hurling rocks, hundreds gathered Thursday in western Afghanistan to protest American airstrikes that Afghan officials and villagers said had killed many civilians, threatening to stiffen Afghan opposition to the war just as the Obama administration is sending 20,000 more troops.

The PR toothpaste is out of the media tube. It won’t matter if we find out later that no civilians died at the hands of the Americans, the damage is done. The Afghan government is undermined and the American presence is made more difficult. Does this mean that I support the complete elimination of drones? No. Close air support with ground troops remains essential to combating this insurgency*, but just as important–and perhaps more so–are good information operations. We turned the corner on IO in Iraq, but it is clear that we are lagging in Afghanistan.

And speaking of insurgencies, Malcolm Gladwell has a fascinating piece on basketball and warfare. Specifically, he tells the tale of how an inferior girls basketball team was able to defeat their opponents. This excerpt caught my eye:

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

I’m sure there’s a few lessons in there about insurgencies and counterinsurgencies.

* As noted in the NYT article, the civilian deaths occurred at the hands of Special Forces, and they had called in close air support. However, Special Forces doesn’t do COIN, which to me is a problem. Herschel Smith has posts here and here about how Special Forces ops have been counterproductive to our effort.

If the Catholics had a saint who represented people whose mouths move faster than their brains, then Joe Biden would be its patron. This morning, Dumbass Joe unnecessarily caused alarm on the Today Show when he said the following:

I would tell members of my family, and I have, that I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, if I had another way, another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.

Here’s the video:

The White House, seemingly anticipating that DJ Biden would step in it, went into damage control quickly after he stepped in it.

That contradicted more restrained advice from President Barack Obama and the federal government — and the last thing the White House wants to do right now is shut down the airline industry and big-city subways out of mass panic.

The White House quickly arranged for Biden to make this statement through a spokesperson.

“On the Today Show this morning, the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week. The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways. This is the advice the vice president has given family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week. As the president said just last night, every American should take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: Keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you’re sick and keep your children home from school if they’re sick.”

Well, that wasn’t what Biden said, but it was an interesting “clarifying statement”. As Tom Maquire says:

They told me that if I voted for McCain we’d have a Vice President who was a moron… and they were right!

Jake Tapper makes White House flack Robert Gibbs squirm, which is always entertaining.

But jokes aside, Joe Biden is a joke, and he’s a joke who happens to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Of course, I would never wish that an American president be assassinated, but I especially pray that Obama stays out of harm’s way. Our nation should not have an idiot as commander-in-chief, and DJ Biden is that idiot.

With every passing day, I’ve become increasingly convinced that John McCain should have picked Tim Pawlenty for the VP slot. It would’ve been a safe uncontroversial pick, and it would have exposed Obama’s exceedingly poor judgment in picking Biden. The Palin phenomenon almost completely overshadowed Obama’s goddawful choice.

So what can Obama do about Joe? For the benefit of this country, my first choice would be that DJ takes his own initiative and resigns, thereby letting Obama have a do-over. Obama can’t be seen as pressuring Joe to quit because it would be a direct acknowledgment that Obama screwed up, and goodness knows, The One can’t be seen to have made such a colossal blunder.

What’s Plan B? The super-secret bunker. The Obama team could invent some national security issue that would keep Biden in a secret location, letting him out only for brief forays to the Senate when they’re in session.

What’s Plan C? The Obama team could make up some injury to Biden’s vocal chords, leaving him only able to communicate via squawk box. A White House aide would commandeer the squawk box, who would then put out basic Obama talking points.

How about Plan D? Give Biden a full pardon and free pass on plagiarism. If he prolifically copies somebody else’s words, well, it stands to reason those borrowed words will be smarter than the ones he makes up on his own.

Sheesh, what we’re the people of Delaware thinking when they kept reelecting the guy?

Hi. I’m in…Delaware.

I assume General Petraeus wouldn’t be saying these things if he didn’t have the backing from his boss. In Armed Forces Press Services, the USCOM commander sketched out a little more on what he wants to see in Afghanistan:

Petraeus cited the downward spiral the country has taken, with an expanded and stronger insurgency and markedly increased levels of violence.

Also, the Afghan government has been slow to develop, is wracked with corruption, and its legitimacy in the eyes of the locals has suffered.

Petraeus embraced President Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan, saying that progress there is tied to a “robust, sustained and comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign.”

“Our fundamental objective in Afghanistan remains … to ensure that transnational terrorists are not able to establish the sanctuaries they enjoyed there prior to 9/11,” Petraeus said. “Accomplishing this aim, though, requires not just killing or capturing terrorists, but also developing Afghan security forces, reducing the drug trade that finances the insurgency, fostering the growth of Afghan governance …, creating basic economic opportunity for Afghan citizens, and so forth.”

But while the challenges in Afghanistan parallel those in Iraq, the fight is not the same, he said. In fact, Petraeus called it “daunting,” and said that, while the principles of counterinsurgency are the same, they must be adapted to work in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is larger and more rural than Iraq with more rugged terrain and harsher climate. Fewer in Afghanistan are literate and there are fewer natural resources.

The total revenue generation in Afghanistan was under $1 billion last year, compared to $60 billion generated in oil revenue alone last year in Iraq. Also, Afghanistan has very little infrastructure, all but stopping the government’s attempt to deliver basic services.

“In Afghanistan, we are building; not rebuilding,” Petraeus said.

More forces are needed in Afghanistan, Petraeus said, which will allow troops to secure areas that have been already cleared. Just as in Iraq, many times enemy fighters simply hide out in the mountains until the U.S. troops have gone, and then return to the villages and towns.

“The increase in forces and focus on securing the people are needed, to help create the breathing space that will allow Afghanistan to stand up for themselves and that will also allow the government to begin working for its people and providing essential services, instead of simply struggling to survive,” Petraeus said.

Even now, the U.S. military is mirroring the strategy of moving troops out of bases and into the communities. In the small combat outposts they partner with the Afghan forces to keep watch over the villages so that the insurgents cannot return. They are also funding the rebuilding of schools, clinics and other projects that provide basic services, in an effort to gain the locals’ trust.

Another program that mirrors efforts in Iraq is the Afghan public protection program, similar in concept to the Sons of Iraq. More trainers are needed to help grow the Afghan forces, Petraeus said.

But, just as in Iraq, more U.S. or NATO forces alone are not the lone answer to solving the problems there.

“Operating in a country known as the ‘graveyard of empires,’ our forces must partner with their [Afghan] counterparts to show the Afghan people that they are not would-be conquerors but are instead there to secure and serve Afghan communities,” Petraeus said. “Doing so will require being good neighbors.”

Reconciliation efforts must be embraced – a much debated topic within both the U.S. and Afghan governments because most believe that senior Taliban leaders would never agree to necessary preconditions. But Petraeus said it should start at the local level where those who are simply fighting to support their families are given an economic alternative.

Petraeus also echoed recent remarks by senior U.S. officials that the way ahead in Afghanistan will require a much more coordinated civil-military approach.

“As always, military action is necessary, but not sufficient,” Petraeus said. “Additional civilian resources will be essential to building on the progress that our troopers and their Afghan partners can achieve on the ground.”

A tall order, and perhaps one way to accomplish is to go Dutch. That is, if Hillary can strong-arm enough civilians to go there.

One of the fronts in this battle has a decidedly economic angle.

Through extortion and taxation, the Taliban are believed to reap as much as $300 million a year from Afghanistan’s opium trade, which now makes up 90 percent of the world’s total. That is enough, the Americans say, to sustain all of the Taliban’s military operations in southern Afghanistan for an entire year.

“Opium is their financial engine,” said Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, the deputy commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan. “That is why we think he will fight for these areas.”

The Americans say that their main goal this summer will be to provide security for the Afghan population, and thereby isolate the insurgents.

But because the opium is tilled in heavily populated areas, and because the Taliban are spread among the people, the Americans say they will have to break the group’s hold on poppy cultivation to be successful.

The Taliban’s got their mind on their money and their money on their mind, which is why it won’t be an easy fight. But it will be a necessary one. More from Pulitzer-worthy Filkins:

Like the guerrillas they are, Taliban fighters often fade away when confronted by a conventional army. But in Afghanistan, as they did in Zangabad, the Taliban will probably stand and fight.

Among the ways the Taliban are believed to make money from the opium trade is by charging farmers for protection; if the Americans and British attack, the Taliban will be expected to make good on their side of that bargain.

Indeed, Taliban fighters have begun to fight any efforts by the Americans or the British to move into areas where poppy grows and opium is produced. Last month, a force of British marines moved into a district called Nad Ali in Helmand Province, the center of the country’s poppy cultivation. The Taliban were waiting. In a five-day battle, the British killed 120 Taliban fighters and wounded 150. Only one British soldier was wounded.

Many of the new American soldiers will fan out along southern Afghanistan’s largely unguarded 550-mile-long border with Pakistan. Among them will be soldiers deployed in the Stryker, a relatively quick, nimble armored vehicle that can roam across the vast areas that span the frontier.

A factor that could reverse any advances is the attempt to wean poppy farmers away from poppy farming. It’s too lucrative.

Then there is the problem of weaning poppy farmers from poppy farming — a task that has proved intractable in many countries, like Colombia, where the American government has tried to curtail poppy production. It is by far the most lucrative crop an Afghan can farm. The opium trade now makes up nearly 60 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, American officials say. The country’s opium traffickers typically offer incentives that no Afghan government official can: they can guarantee a farmer a minimum price for the crop as well as taking it to market, despite the horrendous condition of most of Afghanistan’s roads.

“The people don’t like to cultivate poppy, but they are desperate,” Mohammed Ashraf Naseri, the governor of Zabul Province, told a group of visitors this month.

To offer an alternative to poppy farming, the American military is setting aside $250 million for agriculture projects like irrigation improvements and wheat cultivation. General Nicholson said that a $200 million plan for infrastructure improvements, much of it for roads to help get crops to market, was also being prepared. The vision, General Nicholson said, is to try to restore the agricultural economy that flourished in Afghanistan in the 1970s. That, more than military force, will defeat the Taliban, he said.

“There is a significant portion of the enemy that we believe we can peel off with incentives,” the general said. “We can hire away many of these young men.”

Even if the Americans are able to cut production, shortages could drive up prices and not make a significant dent in the Taliban’s profits.

If it were me in charge, I wouldn’t be too hardline on cutting poppy production. It could easily backfire.

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States penned a ridiculous piece in the Wall Street Journal today, rife with strawmen, bullsh*t and whining. If you’re concerned about the Taliban’s ongoing takeover of large parts of the country, and if you’re concerned that the Taliban wants control of the country and nationwide sharia law, then you are experiencing “panicked reactions”. Straw man. Would you like a good example of bullsh*t? Here’s one, and it’s multi-layered:

Now that the Taliban have been driven out of Buner, and Pakistani forces have militarily engaged them just outside their Swat Valley stronghold, it should be clear to all that Pakistan can and will defeat the Taliban.

First, the Taliban’s military wing made a temporary tactical withdrawal, but they didn’t really withdraw.

Under the deal, officials agreed to allow strict Islamic law to be imposed in Swat and six surrounding districts, including Buner, in exchange for the Taliban fighters laying down their weapons.

What the Pakistani forces accomplished was almost nothing. They made a deal a few days ago with the Taliban–a deal that the Taliban has already broken–to have militants lay down arms but leave non-militant Islamist supremacists to administer 13th century fundamentalist law. But wait! There’s more!

In the free elections that returned Pakistan to democracy in February 2008, Pakistanis overwhelmingly rejected Taliban sympathizers and advocates of extremist Islamist ideologies.

Talibaners and related Islamists didn’t run for election in 2008, on theological principle. They don’t believe in democracy, so they sat out. An explanation:

Does this mean the end of Islamism in Pakistan? Not quite. In fact, while the defeat of Musharraf’s political allies in the PML (Q) signals a new political leadership in Islamabad, the defeat of the MMA could also signal a new political and religious leadership in the troubled areas along the border with Afghanistan. In the North West Frontier Province, where the MMA formed the provincial government last term, the Islamists’ vote bank was a combination of die-hards who desired the creation of an Islamic state and those less ideologically driven who were attracted to the MMA’s promises of justice, economic renewal, and security. This time around, the latter voted for the Awami National Party. The former, such as Iqbal Khan of the Swat Valley, joined the Taliban.

Last October, Khan invited me to his home for dinner, where he proudly displayed a bookcase full of al-Qaida paraphernalia—letters from Mullah Omar, video messages from Osama Bin Laden, and a backpack that Ayman al-Zawahiri apparently left behind after a visit. He, like all his neighbors in their remote village, voted for the MMA in 2002, hoping the Islamists in parliament would fulfill their pledge to implement sharia law. But when they not only failed to do that but were increasingly viewed as being just as corrupt as their predecessors, Khan and his cohorts withdrew their support from the politicians and shifted their allegiances to the militants.

The Taliban doesn’t have a tremendous amount of grass-roots support, but the new Zardari government isn’t helping. The BS doesn’t end there.

The model here was the successful pacification of Fallujah in Iraq, where agreements with more moderate elements broke them away from al Qaeda nihilists. The model worked so well in Fallujah that it is now being resurrected by the American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The goal in Pakistan’s Swat Valley was the same.

Mr. Haqqani is trying to compare the Swat Valley (which is embracing militant Islamists) with Fallujuah, which drove them out. Would you like some whine with that bullsh*t? Here’s this:

Meanwhile, the change of administration in the U.S. has slowed the flow of assistance to Pakistan. Unfortunately, ordinary Pakistanis have begun to wonder if our alliance with the West is bringing any benefits at all.

[...]

What does Pakistan need to contain this threat? In the short term we need the U.S. to share modern technology in antiterrorist engagement. Pakistan needs night-vision equipment, jammers that can knock out FM radio transmissions by the terrorists, and a larger, modernized fleet of helicopter gunships for ground support in the massive sweeps that are necessary to contain, repel and destroy the enemy.

Yet Washington has been reluctant to share this modern equipment, and to train our military in antiterrorism techniques, because of concerns that these systems could be used against India. Such concerns are misplaced. Pakistanis understand that the primary threat to our homeland today is not from our neighbor to the east but from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on our border with Afghanistan. To meet this threat, we must be provided the means to fight the terrorists while we work on resuming our composite dialogue with India.

Pakistan might have a better relationship with India if they did not harbor Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant Islamist group responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Pakistan might have a better relationship with the United States if its own security agency, the ISI, were not so favorably disposed to militant Islamists. Pakistan might have a better relationship with the United States if we could conduct joint operations against militant Islamists on Pakistani soil. Instead, our sole option is aerial drones, which serves to alienate Pakistanis and make them anti-American. Instead, we have an ambassador who is misrepresenting what is occurring in his country in an effort to grub some cash from a non-sprendthrift U.S. government. But that said, the Kerry-Lugar bill doesn’t sound terrible, but not terribly helpful either.

In Slate, Nicholas Schmidle has a template for saving Pakistan, but it looks more like a stopgap to me, based partly on the hope that Taliban is its own worst enemy. That may be true, but they didn’t lose their power until it was forcibly taken from them by the U.S. and Northern Alliance. Also, our military supply lines into Afghanistan are imperiled by entrenched Taliban control.

FYI, Schmidle has a pretty good Idiot’s Guide to Pakistan.

Starting three years ago, which was roughly when al Qaeda suicide-bombed the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a wave of sectarian violence erupted in Iraq. From February 2006 through August 2007, the violence was horrific: al Qaeda and Sunni insurgents attacked Shiite and Kurdish targets, and Shiite paramilitants went on forays to slay Sunni military-age males. Coalition forces were hit with IEDs and ambushes. The intent of al Qaeda was to foment a civil war, and they almost got one. Democrats (and a few Republicans) were quick to proclaim that the Iraq had devolved into a civil war. Jack Murtha declared that Iraq was in that state even before the Golden Mosque bombing took place:

“Our troops are the target,” Murtha told the newspaper. “We’re not fighting terrorism in Iraq. We’re fighting a civil war in Iraq. We’ve got to give them an incentive. We fought our Civil War. Let them fight their civil war.”

Barack Obama believed that Iraq was in a civil war, which I’m sure helped provide him the rationale for his cut-and-run Iraq De-Escalation Act of 2007:

“We’re not going to baby sit a civil war,” Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told NBC’s “Today” Show Thursday. He said the Democratic-controlled Congress would not undercut troops already in Iraq but would explore ways to restrict the president from expanding the mission.

Irish dacha owner Chris Dodd:

Again, this is a civil war going on in Iraq. This is not the United States versus Al Qaida. It’s Shia versus Sunnis tearing each other apart. It’s gone on for centuries, but particularly here right now. The United States is being asked to, in a sense, referee a civil war.

Uber-partisan Harry Reid:

The Nevada Democrat said he has been “somewhat gingerly approaching this…. No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq. In the last two months, more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed.

Nancy Pelosi:

The American people reject the President’s call for an ‘enduring relationship’ with Iraq that is based on leaving our troops in the middle of a deadly civil war for at least 10 years.

So the question I have is, how many people have to die before we say that Pakistan is in a civil war? The Taliban don’t appear satisified with the control of some districts in the frontier provinces. Rather, they look more Islamist supremacists. A recap:

• This Frontline video shows in detail the violence and intimidation the Taliban use to impose their fundamentalist views on the populace.
• After an 18-month long battle, the Pakistani government gave up the Swat Valley to the Taliban. Now the Switzerland of the Far East is moving in the direction of a religious gulag, and it is proving to be a base for continued expansion.
  

  Since the new peace deal was made, the militants are beginning to push into neighboring areas. Last week they overpowered a village militia in the adjacent Buner district. The attack was a violation of the peace accord. But the Taliban faction that controls Swat says it has no intention of withdrawing.

• The Taliban is working its way into Punjab, the country’s most populous province.
• The Taliban are moving on Mardan, a district in the Northwest Frontier Province.
  

  Attacks such as these preceded the Taliban takeover of Tank, Bannu, Hangu, Lakki Marwat, Swat, Shangla, Arakzai, and Bajaur. Mardan was also one of the districts chosen by the Swat Taliban to parade through after its near-effortless takeover of Buner, a district just 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad

  [...]

  The Taliban are nearing their takeover of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Pakistani government recently ceded the northern third of the province to the Taliban after agreeing to implement sharia in a large region known as the Malakand Division. The seven western tribal agencies and most of the bordering districts are under Taliban control or under strong Taliban influence.

• The Pakistani military abandoned South Waziristan to the Taliban last August. More from Bill Roggio:
  

  The security situation in northwestern Pakistan and in neighboring Afghanistan has rapidly deteriorated since the government initiated its latest round of peace accords with the Taliban and allied extremists in the tribal areas and settled districts in the Northwest Frontier Province. Peace agreements have been signed with the Taliban in North Waziristan, Swat, Dir, Bajaur, Malakand, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, and Hangu.

  Negotiations are underway in South Waziristan, Kohat, and Mardan. The Taliban have violated the terms of these agreements in every region where accords have been signed.

  The Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied terrorist groups have established more than 100 terror camps in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.

This would be less of a problem if the people actually wanted Islamist subjugation. But this isn’t the case. This post from Hilzoy dates back to November 2007, but back then only 5% of the people voted for the Islamist political party. The rest of the parties are broadly secular.