When President Barack Obama laid out his plan for winning the war in Afghanistan, behind him stood an army of ghosts: Greeks, Mongols, Buddhists, British, and Russians, all whom had almost the same illusions as the current resident of the Oval Office about Central Asia. The first four armies are dust. But there are Russian …
Continue reading “The Af-Pak Train Wreck”
John Walsh on the race to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat
It’s tough to tell what’s going to happen with Af-Pak. We get so many conflicting reports. For a time, we heard that President Obama was leaning toward sending 30,000 additional troops there, and that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham …
Continue reading “Reading the Af-Pak Tea Leaves”
We hear daily reports that President Obama has made this or that decision about how many more troops to send to the Afghan front; the numbers vary. This Reuters report headlines "four options" the president is considering, but then names only three: sending 15,000, 30,000, or 40,000. Is the fourth option getting the heck out …
Continue reading “Stop, Look, Listen”
Drone strikes are no panacea, argues Charles Peña
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Barack Obama’s choice for commander in what he has renamed the AfPak theater, in what no longer is called the Global War on Terror, has been trying, with the help of Democratic as well as Republican hawks, to bounce President Obama into a really long war. Unless he gets a lot …
Continue reading “Gen. McChrystal’s Celebrity Weekend”
What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on U.S. soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What …
Continue reading “Instead of Bombs and Bribes,
Let’s Try Empathy and Trade”
The Pentagon’s preemptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s confidential review of the Afghan war to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. McChrystal’s painting of the military picture was grim. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) – while Afghan security capacity matures – …
Continue reading “Generals Open New Front in Washington”
Obama proves that smarts are not enough, says Jeff Huber
It would be a great service to the American nation if Barack Obama would tell us what he himself thinks the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are about. To capture Osama bin Laden? There have been eight years in which to capture bin Laden and it’s not been done yet, and there seems no reason …
Continue reading “Political Solution in Afghanistan Possible,
but Not by Going Down Current Path” 
