Tacit Approval Scenario: Confirmed

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the strong tactical and operational indicators for the idea that Pakistan was tacitly endorsing (while publicly denouncing) American airstrikes in its own territory. However, I wasn't thinking creatively enough. Turns out the tacit endorsement extended to direct operational support (basing) of those CIA operations inside Pakistan:

Information Dissemination was the first blog on my radar to ping this explosive Chicago Tribune story:

At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise at Pakistani opposition to the ongoing campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets along Pakistan's northwest border.

"As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," she said of the planes.

The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counterterrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.

Feinstein's spokesman claims that she was referring to this article from the Washington Post last March:

Musharraf, who controls the country's military forces, has long approved U.S. military strikes on his own. But senior officials in Pakistan's leading parties are now warning that such unilateral attacks -- including the Predator strikes launched from bases near Islamabad and Jacobabad in Pakistan -- could be curtailed.

A further article appeared last November that suggested, on background from "senior officials in both countries," that Pakistan had a secret deal with the US to continue the airstrikes. That speaks of a purposeful, approved leak to the press designed to deflate domestic political doubt and opposition, and to send a signal internationally (ie, NATO allies) to avoid loud protestations. The article is quick to point out that the airstrikes have been "a success":

Two former senior intelligence officials familiar with the use of the Predator in Pakistan said the rift between Islamabad and Washington over the unilateral attacks was always less than it seemed.

"By killing al-Qaeda, you're helping Pakistan's military and you're disrupting attacks that could be carried out in Karachi and elsewhere," said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Pakistan's new acquiescence coincided with the new government there and a sharp increase in domestic terrorist attacks, including the September bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

"The attacks inside Pakistan have changed minds," the official said. "These guys are worried, as they should be."

The assertion that the strikes have been strategically effective has been disputed by many in the COIN community:

"Sometimes we might have to [attack with drones] -- but only where larger interests (say, stopping another 9/11) are directly affected," he tells Danger Room. "We need to be extremely careful about undermining the longer-term objective -- a stable Pakistan, where elected politicians control their own national-security establishment, and extremism is diminishing -- for the sake of collecting scalps."

Kilcullen's premise is that the airstrikes have been "destabilizing" to the Pakistani government. That government may have concluded that that such tactical pressure is worth the risk of internal upheaval. As I wrote in "The Tacit Approval Scenario:"

In short, the Reaper can do the kind of reconnaissance and surveillance that makes the missile strikes it launches possible in the first place: it represents a tactical capability that the Pakistanis simply don't possess.

Remember: Pakistan is fighting a civil war. Their leadership may feel, rightly or wrongly, that they should use whatever tactical advantage they can (particularly one that, first and foremost, gives them the initiative).

Update: David Axe weighs in:

The advent of killer drones has enabled the U.S. military and CIA to run lethal air campaigns without a lot of people noticing.

That’s bad. It’s all too easy to push ethical boundaries when nobody’s watching.

So open up those verbal floodgates, Senator, and shine some sunlight on our secretive air wars.

A dramatization of my job woes

And the reason I haven't posted lately. Fucking time vampires.

Obama at Townhall meeting in Elkhart

Part 1:



Part 2:



I concur with David Neiwert at C&L:

Anyone remember the Potemkin Village quality of George W. Bush's "town hall" appearances? How everyone was prescreened, and uncomfortable or difficult questions -- let alone questions posed by someone from the other side of the political aisle -- were never ever EVER asked?

Take the inspirational rhetoric with a grain of salt. First Obama needs to throw post-partisanship under the bus already. Jane Hamsher, most valuable for her seemingly rare ability to actually recognize that people act to further their own interests, has been beating that drum as long as anyone:

The administration assumed that Obama's overwhelming popularity, combined with a rapidly worsening economic crisis and a welcome mat for the GOP would be enough to push Republicans into a collaborative mode. It wasn't. They belatedly began calling the act the Economic Recovery Act, but it never caught on. The White House hailed the Nelson/Collins compromise because it creates "jobs jobs jobs," yet Krugman and others maintain that the changes they made significantly reduced job creation, with estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1.25 million jobs over the next two years. When Larry Summers was confronted with that charge on This Week he would not dispute it. Apologists like Claire McCaskill are left to tilt at straw men.

It least there is a small glimmer of hope that he may get banks right yet. One word: nationalize.

Obama followed up his speech at Elkhart with a press conference. His prepared remarks follow:

Recession Reality

Two quick clips worth watching from TP:

Kentucky:



South Carolina:

USS Cole Repercussions Continue...

...and Larry Johnson lays them squarely at the feet of... who else?

This is one of the many fuck ups by George Bush. Al-Nashiri was captured back October 2002 and, despite having him in custody for more than six years, the Bushies could not figure out what to do with him. This one ain’t on Barack.

And while we are at it, we would not be in this dilemma if the Commander of the U.S.S. cole, Kirk Lippold, had done his job in the first place. That clown failed to implement his ship’s security plan and created an opening that allowed the terrorists to attack the Cole. Instead of doing the decent thing and keeping his yap shut, Lippold is back seeking public attention.

LJ's not exaggerating:





It's not the failure itself that is the rot here, it's the failure to take responsibility, from the top down.

Republican Levity

First there's the news that Bush and Cheney are wanted men in Vermont:



Then, word comes out that Ann Coulter is being probed for voter fraud:

Ann Coulter lives in New York where she owns an apartment but votes in Connecticut using her father's address. And that's illegal. So following a formal complaint filed by coulterwatch.com's Dan Borchers and a report in the NY Daily News, Connecticut's Elections Enforcement Commission is probing the faux-comedienne/brassy blonde author.

Cheney and Coulter facing jail in the same week? If only we enjoyed a justice system that truly applies the law equally...

The Navy's ongoing Identity Crisis

The Navy has suffered from a general lack of direction in recent years. It can't decide what to pursue in terms of a coherent procurement plan:

“If you stop building DDG 1000s and you have a DDG 51 that really doesn’t have that X-band and isn’t intended to operate close to the shoreline and in that cluttered environment, it’s not clear how you provide air protection for the littoral combat ship (LCS).

“So there, you’ve got to ask yourself what the strategy is that has us wanting to buy 55 LCSs, which don’t have any air self-defense capability, and I don’t really have a ship that helps provide the air cover for that ship. Because when [the LCS] was envisioned by [former Chief of Naval Operations] Adm. [Vern] Clark and others, that was the strategy, the way it would hang together.”

That's John Young speaking in his capacity as "Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics." He's in the difficult position of having to explain the high dollar amount attached to the Navy's version of the F-22 or FCS, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt Destroyer. All are, in some way or another, gold-plated poster children of a completely dysfunctional procurement process.

The Navy also can't decide how to pursue its new missions:

The same day, McKnight transferred his staff to the cruiser Vella Gulf and San Antonio turned back to the United States [and away from its role as flagship of CTF-151]. The Navy said the rotation was routine, but it’s worth pointing out that San Antonio has suffered severe mechanical problems as a result of shoddy construction.

Just a week earlier, McKnight had praised San Antonio as the perfect pirate-fighting warship.

...

Trading San Antonio ship for a cruiser will have some knock-on effects. The cruiser has less aviation deck space and fewer helicopters, potentially fewer small boats and definitely less space for staff, extra boarding teams and captured pirates. A deal-breaker for the Navy’s first dedicated counter-pirate force? Certainly not. But it’s not good news.

My guess is, the Navy simply realized that it was never going to go amphibious on the pirates.

Finally, the Navy's having trouble doing some basic things right:

The USS Port Royal (CG 73), the youngest cruiser in the fleet, went aground just outside Pearl Harbor Thursday night

.

Galrahn has more:

Normally I wouldn't bother posting about a grounding here, but PORT ROYAL is one of just three BMD cruisers in the fleet and she looks to be well in the shoal water on Runway Reef and parallel to the beach, to boot.

Luckily, no one was hurt, and it is apparently not leaking anything.

Tom Ricks media blitz

Tom Ricks has released a new book, "The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq," and has been pimping it on TV and in print.

Here he is on Meet The press discussing Iraq...

...and Afghanistan.

Thomas Barnett also has a book out, and takes a moment to lament the promotional advantage that Ricks enjoys as a traditional media insider:

Then check out Tom Ricks' new book, excerpted big-time on the frontpage of the Washington Post. His associated story on Odierno, the man who changed the course of the war, is also big-time news just in time to plug his book's release. I mean, that's pretty cool when you can get the editors of a national newspaper to pretend that the lead items of your book just so happen to warrant national coverage just before your book comes out. I mean, if Ricks wrote this stuff all down months ago, why not get that newsworthy stuff out there back then? I know, hardy har. "Meet the Press" talked about having me on "sometime," but guess who's on today to plug his book out on Tuesday? Of course, because this weekend news cycle is just screaming for a history of the surge from 2007 and 2008.

...

You ever wonder how MSM journalists always seem to have bestsellers? I don't. They enjoy an entire system of scratch-my-back-today-and-I'll-get-yours-tomorrow. They put in the years and so they get the media access when the book comes around.

Of course, Tom's latest article was also just a book-selling exercise, but hey.

Abu Muqawama highlights an excerpt from said Odierno article, while poking a bit of fun at the idea that The Surge™ was crafted by a few, good, men:

Now if you happen to know a lot of the people who were responsible for implementing the surge, you also happen to know there are several different narratives for who was responsible for making the surge happen. Team O, Team P, and Team First Cav all have their own versions of what happened, and those are just the guys and girls in Baghdad. I can only imagine how many people in the 202 area code also take credit for the drop in violence that took place over 2007.

What narrative do I privilege? Whose story do I trust the most? Well, I take a very unconventional view of surge history. In my mind, it was all one big romantic comedy, filled with sexual tension and hi-jinks.

On the long flight home to Washington in a C-17 military cargo jet, Gates, who declined to be interviewed for this article, disappeared into his mobile home in the plane's belly with Pace and a bottle of California cabernet sauvignon. A few days later, Odierno got the word: Gates wants you to have all five brigades.

Now if that isn't the funniest thing you'll read all weekend, I don't know what is. This is how we plan our wars, world. Why you lot haven't succeeded in beating us in more of them I have no idea.

Obama Speech on Economic Recovery

Posted here because it's worth watching in its entirety.

Economic Illiteracy

Paul Krugman writes:

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

...

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

"Post-partisanship" does not work as a negotiating tactic if the other side is not arguing in good faith. The Republicans exploited the automaker bailout to try and eliminate union power in that industry, not to protect jobs or the economy. They're doing the same now with the Employee Free Choice Act, and desperately trying to dilute the stimulus bill with tax cuts so that they don't suffer a completely black and white repudiation of their self-serving, supply-side, economic policies. After all, they can't be so stupid that they actually believe tax cuts are the answer to the current crisis.



...can they? Ignorance and malice are often very hard to tell apart.

What Class Warfare looks like

With all the bleating about "wealth redistribution" these days, you would think American capitalism itself was under attack.



"Tyranny and socialism!" Those are supposedly the twin outcomes of the potential passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, because said act would supposedly "eliminate" the right for workers to organize by secret ballot.

Except there's one small problem: that's a bald-faced lie.

Or in the words of Jane Hamsher, "it's all complete horseshit:"

Until 35 years ago, workers could choose either secret ballot or majority sign-up ("card check") as a way to recognize a union to contractually represent them. But in 1974, the Supreme Court handed down a decision saying that an employer could refuse to acknowledge majority sign-up and demand a "secret ballot" election instead. The secret ballot system under the jurisdiction of the NLRB has been rife with abuse, as Frank's article details well. The Employee Free Choice Act would simply put the choice about organizing method back in the hands of workers rather than the employer.

You see, it's not as if the "secret ballot" elections are organized and conducted by United Nations elections observers. They're run by management directly, which effectively hands the reins to the whole process to the very same people that workers would be trying to organize against.

It's also the reason we don't have a labor secretary yet:



Shameful.

Ukrainian ship freed, but whither the cargo?

That is the question asked by Elisabeth Dickinson over at FP:

Somali pirates released the hijacked Ukrainaian vessel, the MV Faina, today to much international applause. Held since September, it cost 'just' $3.2 million in ransom. (And yes, that is a bargain given the cargo's value is estimated at $30 million).

How delightful that the hostages on board are free! But I feel quite differently about the cargo. Doesn't anyone remember what is on this ship? That $30 million of cargo is not oil or clothes or cars. It's weapons -- tanks, arms, and more. The Ukranian press reports that it is still headed to Kenya -- it's original desintation, maybe. Or was it the semi-autonomous but increasingly armed Government of Southern Sudan?

Barnett's new release: "Great Powers"

Tom Barnett has a new book out, "Great Powers: America and the World After Bush." He's been giving interviews and writing articles lately to lay the groundwork for its release, and if the thinking in them is any indication, his book should turn out to be a must-read.

From this month's Esquire:

But here's the tough compromise that may hold up this much-needed expansion: The EU seems determined to get some sort of global securities-and-exchange commission to regulate intermarket financial flows in the future — in effect, viewing the current global crash as Washington once did Wall Street's 1929 collapse. As far as emerging markets are concerned, that's going to feel suspiciously constraining; having just achieved some wealth, the rising East and South now face the West's desire to regulate crucial investment flows so as to smooth out an inevitable global business cycle. Which is like wanting to go all the way on the first date — that trust simply does not yet exist in the system.

...

If Ahmadinejad is toppled by either the moderate former president Mohammad Khatami or the technocratic Tehran mayor, Mohammad Qalibaf, then Iran is definitely back in play, giving Obama plenty more wiggle room elsewhere, but only if he and Hillary Clinton can keep a lid on Israel's hard-line factions, which seem intent on taking out Iran's nuclear facilities preemptively. (Such strikes won't succeed, but they would trigger Iran's hard-line retrenchment, no matter which candidate prevails.) To that end, when the Obama camp coolly floats the notion of extending America's nuclear umbrella over Israel and — implicitly — any friendly neighboring Arab state that desires it, the former junior senator from Illinois is breaking out the big-boy voice of the world's sole military superpower.

Also today, via SWJ, Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett:

I want to make clear to the reader that this globalization is of our making—the result of a conscious grand strategy that I can trace back to at least Teddy Roosevelt’s dream of making the world more hospitable to America’s need to simply be all that it can be. That somewhat undifferentiated vision got sharper with Wilson, after WWI. The vision became reality with FDR, after WWII, when he set in motion the international liberal trade order that begets the West and, in turn, the globalization we enjoy today. That model of states uniting and economies integrating and defense shifting to security and a uniquely competitive religious landscape was built here—first—in these United States, the planet’s original multinational political and economic and security union. With Deng’s decision to marketize China, creating a critical mass for globalization in the early 1980s, we’ve since seen that model spread like wildfire around the planet, reformatting traditional societies in a dynamic right out of Marx’s Das Kapital. In short, our revolutionary vision for ourselves has now become our intentional revolutionary vision for the planet. This made-in-America, globalization—love it but you can’t leave it—now encompasses everybody save the “bottom billion.”

Bill Gates sicks mosquitos on Ted audience

Stimulus dramatics

President Obama, after seemingly expecting the stimulus bill to float through congress on a hopey cloud of change, and all but ceding the mass media squawk boxes to Republicans, has finally come out swinging. Via today's Washington Post:

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

John McCain's BFF and the Republicans' foremost court jester, Sen. Lindsey Graham, countered with a fever pitch of hand wringing and lip quivering whining:



Rachel Maddow wraps up today's debate in the Senate nicely here:

The takeaway from Daschlegate: Executive Accountability

Obama did his best to turn the Daschle lemon into lemonade by taking personal responsibility for the screw-up. That kind of thing will work as long as people don't tire of these Obama v. Bush mashups.

Laura Flanders tells it like it really is: Daschle would not have been an effective advocate for the kind of health care reform that is needed anyway:

TPMs 2/5/09 in 100 seconds

Attackerman!

No, not Spencer. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) tears into SEC stooges:



I need a cigarette.

TPMs 2/4/09 in 100 seconds

SCHIP: "The first step"

If you want to feel just a little bit better about the direction we're headed in, watch this. Obama doesn't pull any punches. With this much political steam, you have to wonder why he's fumbling the stimulus football so badly.

He's baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

If you can stomach it, Cheney is back, and the Hardball gang tear into him:



I'll leave it to Larry Johnson for the "analysis" this goon deserves:

Listen up you big Dick, if you guys had spent your energy on tracking down Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zwahiri rather than squandering our nation’s wealth and blood in Iraq and exposing the identity of a covert CIA officer and her network of spies then we might be safer. But by your own admission the terrorists are still in a position to harm America because you guys fucked the dog.

The best thing that came of Cheney's creepy, pathetic interview was that I got to learn a new phrase from LJ.

Of Gonzo and Turdblossom

Question: why is disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales going on TV?



The answer: Rove may have to spill some beans soon.. which means he'll need a scapegoat.



Stay tuned.

like a high school football coach at half time

This is classic. Imagine how much worse it is in Afghanistan.

gold plated navy

Defense spending is in the hot seat, as the jockeying for dollars begins in the new administration.

So let's zero in on the navy for a second, as few services have demonstrated such clownish incompetence and forming requirements then building something, anything, to meet them.

Via Galrahn, a lambasting of the Navy's latest stab at coming up with a coherent procurement plan:

Let no one suggest the Barack Obama administration will be soft on defense, because when the administrations first Navy budget could potentially include a new shipbuilding plan with FOUR of the most powerful surface combatants ever built in human history, it appears absolutely clear to me that the Obama Navy with John Young's pen signing checks with taxpayer money is prepared to defend every square inch of the oceans the US Navy sails from a potential future threat by China, not to mention invasion from outer space.

David Axe echoes his sentiments:

Make that two questions: where does the littoral and amphibious fleet fit in a shipbuilding plan skewed towards more battleships? If we can manage the design, construction and budgeting for a battleship-heavy force and a new littoral fleet, then great: go forth and let’s do both. But if reality and recent experience intervene and force us to make hard choices, are we going to buy the amphibs and coastal forces Obama promised, or ditch them in favor of new battleships designed to destroy alien invaders?

Bottom line: naval shipbuilding needs a reset. But it's not just the Navy:

According to the firebrands at the Air Power Australia think-tank, the Lockheed Martin F-22 stealth fighter, today the priciest U.S.-made fighter at around $140 million per new copy, will actually cost less than the supposedly cheaper F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by the same company and intended to be a cost-effective “75-percent” substitute for extra F-22s.

Meanwhile, two emerging superpowers play cat and mouse...

logistical hardball in afghanistan

Via David Axe:

Under pressure from Russia, the Kyrgyz government is taking steps to kick the U.S. military out of Manas air base, a critical supply junction for the Afghanistan war, while militants continue to destroy trucks, pictured, carrying supplies through Pakistan to U.S. and NATO forces. Meanwhile NATO members are considering negotiating with favorite American bogeyman Iran for access to Iranian routes into Afghanistan.

Abu Muqawama weighs in:

Fun fact: A brigade deployed to Afghanistan is twice as expensive to maintain as a brigade in Iraq. Resupply, as you might have guessed, is the primary issue.

...

I can hear Vladimir Putin howling with laughter all the way here in Southeast DC. The Russians are managing to screw us in Afghanistan as badly as we screwed them 20 years ago.

Both bloggers raise the issue of aerial resupply:

Axe kicks off the debate...

Logistics are emerging as the major weakness of the Afghanistan war effort, making a strong argument for greater U.S. investment in logistical forces, especially strategic airlift. More C-17s, anyone?

...and Abu Muqawama carries the football. Good discussion follows in the comments:

Great note on the Afghan resupply problem. Would love to see someone pose the question about why the U.S. cannot build an "air bridge" into Afghanistan? Is it a matter of long-haul planes (C-17s)? Short-haul planes (C-130s)? Airstrip capacity? Logistical personnel / contractor capacity? Cost, which is basically a proxy for the other things? It seems to me that logistical support for power projection is one of the most important missions right now for the Air Force. And, from the Air Force's perspective, it should tickle them pink because it is a mission which can justify a ton of force structure. But they don't seem to have the muscle to do it. Why not?

My question: will this turn into a 21st century Berlin airlift, or will we start to approach the region with some sanity?

electric infrastructure

Jane Hamsher writes about a drop-in battery upgrade for the Toyota Prius:

You can buy a Prius right now that is retrofitted with an A123 lithium ion-battery that pretty much delivers what the Volt will. I spoke with Les Goldman at the auto show, an energy lobbyist who represents A123Systems. He said he'd been driving the Prius with the A123 battery for over a year, and claims it regularly gets over 100 miles per gallon and under maximum conditions will get 180. It can be charged using a standard three pronged outlet and can be 90-95% electric at 30-35 mpg. Les says he fills up his tank about every 8 weeks.

I first remember reading about this "nano-battery" about a year ago on slashdot. Remember: amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. How is a gas station in the middle of BFE going to power a handful of such cars simultaneously without serious upgrades to our electric grid, both in transmission and generation?

And can that generation be achieved in a carbon neutral way without nuclear power, despite similar breakthroughs in photovoltaics? (hint: no.)

The real solution: massive federal infrastructure investment for the grid, massive subsidies for municipal and individual photovoltaics, and massive funding into research for waste-free nuclear power generation.

country first

David Kurtz via TPM:

It occurred to me while reading Politico's interview with Dick Cheney, that the GOP's plan to regain political viability in the short term rests on two disaster scenarios: the failure of the financial rescue efforts (stimulus, TARP, and other bailouts) to stave off complete economic collapse and a new mass casualty terrorist attack -- both of which they are positioning themselves to blame Obama for.

Without one of those two, they have to figure it's going to be a long time wandering in the political wilderness. Now think about the curdling effect, the blight on the soul that comes with rooting for such disasters to befall your country. The rot is now eating at the party's very core.

As long as they are the party of top one-percenters and southern white bible-thumpers.. this makes perfect sense.

Update: Josh Marshall weighs in along the same lines:

The other key into the current debate is that the Republican position is ominously similar to their position on global warming or, for that matter, evolution. The discussion of what to do on the Democratic side tracks more or less with textbook macroeconomics, while Republican argument track either with tax cut monomania or rhetorical claptrap intended to confuse. It's true that macro-economics doesn't make controlled experiments possible. And economists can't speak to these issues with certainty. But in most areas of our lives, when faced with dire potential consequences, we put our stock with scientific or professional consensus where it exists, as it does here. Only in cases where it goes against Republican political interests or economic interests of money-backers do we prefer the schemes of yahoos and cranks to people who study the stuff for a living.

Of course, at some level, why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff? Well, not pretty to say, but they see it in their political interests. Yes, the DeMints and Coburns just don't believe in government at all or have genuinely held if crankish economic views. But a successful Stimulus Bill would be devastating politically for the Republican party. And they know it.

trade war averted

Via FP Passport:

President Obama signaled yesterday that he would seek to remove the controversial "buy American" clause from the Democrats $900 billion stimulus bill. Previously, the bill would only have allowed U.S.-made steel, iron and other materials to be sued in projects funded by the bill. The clause had been sharply criticized by the E.U. and Japanese government.

...

The E.U. denied any quid pro quo over dropping its dairy subsidies in return for the "buy American" clause being cut.

Cooler heads prevail.

the daschle saga in three acts

Act 1: "Distraction"



LJ, via NQ:

I presume you have heard the news–Tom Daschle dropped out as the prospective nominee for Health and Human Services.

Daschle is a congenial guy. I met him when I was on the Hill testifying on behalf of Valerie Plame. But for the love of god, how can a guy with his background and his experience think he can take in more than $2 million dollars from a lobbying firm and not be considered a lobbyist? Worst of all, not reporting income and not paying taxes.

Act 2: "Apology"



Act 3: "Redemption"



LJ again:

Did you catch Barack telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “I screwed up.” Damn, is that refreshing. After eight years of George Bush never admitting to any mistakes (even though they were numerous and glaring) it does appear that President Obama may be serious about this change thing. Now I realize he was drug screaming and kicking to dump Tom Daschle but the point is he did pull the trigger and Daschle is history.

Credits: "Hilarity"



What's with all the Larry Johnson quotes? Well, No Quarter was home to the most heated opposition to the Obama nomination of nearly any serious blog, and if Larry is doling out praise it is not given lightly.

TPMs 2/3/09 in 100 seconds

bridge blown in the khyber pass

This is what happens when you squeeze the ballon:

Hidayatullah Khan, a government official in the region, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the 30-yard-long iron bridge was located 15 miles northwest of Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province.

Pakistani officials said they were assessing the damage and teams had been sent to repair the bridge. But it was not immediately clear how soon the trucks carrying crucial supplies for NATO forces would be able to travel through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.

More than 80 percent of the supplies for American and coalition forces in Afghanistan flow through Pakistan. Attacks aimed at choking the supply lines have become increasingly frequent and brazen, *despite the presence of Pakistani security forces in the area.

Or as commenter Soldiernolongeriniraq puts it over at Abu Muqawama:

Or, BECAUSE of the presence of Pakistani security forces in the area.

iranian sputnik, north korea shenanigans

Iran today claimed to have put a satellite into orbit. Iran has a long history of faking technological accomplishments, but as of yet there's no reason to doubt this one. Missile technology is a lot like nuclear technology in that both are fundamentally dual-use. That is, they have commercial as well as military applications. Putting a satellite into orbit is an important milestone toward putting a warhead into orbit, for example, but satellites are just as important for communications, GPS, etc (also all dual-use).

Let us pause to contemplate what the strategic situation would look like if we were not exhausted and tied down by the Iraqi occupation. Then realize: it is past time for us to join the Europeans in bringing Iran into the fold. It is only a matter of time before they join the nuclear club; so let's spend that time giving them a lot more to lose. That means engaging them in a way that skips right past the Ayatollahs and is meaningful to their population: economic interdependence.

Meanwhile, North Korea prepares to mail a ballistic welcome card to Obama. All of North Korea's bluster in recent days is just that: bluster, intended to puff up their posture before the first round of negotiations with the Obama administration. That's why they have been rattling their saber at the South. Expect a new tack in those negotiations, not least of all because Christopher Hill, the chief American negotiator on the peninsula, has been reassigned to Iraq.

screw the banks

As Ian Welsh of FDL points out so well, "No Banks Mean no Banking Crisis":

Banks exist to be intermediaries between central banks and those who need credit. They are given the ability to create money through fractional reserve money (yes, create) and they also have the right to borrow money at rates that no one else can receive. If you could take your money, multiply it by 10 (that's not the exact number, but as an example) and lend it out, think you could make a profit? If you could borrow money1 to 5% and then lend it out for more than that, in some cases 15% more, think you could make money?

Banks thus are given by governments an incredibly valuable privilege. It's really hard to overstate how easy it is to make steady returns as a bank as long as you don't get greedy. In exchange for the right to create money and borrow it at rates no one else gets, banks are expected to add some value to the equation. Specifically, they are expected to figure out who is a good credit risk, and where money should best be loaned and used. There are two sides of this - money should be loaned where it has a high return. It should also be loaned to folks who can pay it back. It should be invested in the same way—return averaged with risk.

Banks haven't been doing this.

Read it all.

larry johnson and eric holder

On Crossfire one week after 9/11:

Says Larry (a Republican):

I like Holder. He is not a hack like Alberto Gonzales. Most importantly, he understands that the U.S. signature on international conventions is important.

Part 1:


Part 2:

US top wind power producer

As long as you're not calculcating per capita, that is. Reuters fails to mention that little tidbit, nor any mention of energy consumption, etc.

For a typically rowdy discussion about these numbers and more, check Slashdot.

nytimes goes to school on immigrant bashers

The NYTimes takes on the "white is right" set of Latino bashers with its latest editorial.

The relentlessly harsh Republican campaign against immigrants has always hidden a streak of racialist extremism. Now after several high-water years, the Republican tide has gone out, leaving exposed the nativism of fringe right-wingers clinging to what they hope will be a wedge issue.

...

So far, so foul. But even more telling was the presence of Peter Brimelow, a former Forbes editor and founder of Vdare.com, an extremist anti-immigration Web site. It is named for Virginia Dare, the first white baby born in the English colonies, which tells you most of what you need to know. The site is worth a visit. There you can read Mr. Brimelow’s and Mr. Buchanan’s musings about racial dilution and the perils facing white people, and gems like this from Mr. Epstein:

“Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

Personally, I think idiots like those could use a little genetic "dilution." It's the only cure for what must have been generations of inbreeding.

larry johnson on rendition

This is a must-read, because Larry cuts through the confusion surrounding rendition.

There is a lot of erroneous information floating around about “renditions.” Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer is a major source for much of the confusion because he claims that he started the “renditions” program in 1995. Horseshit!

...

Poor Michael (who fortunately was removed from his job in the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center) never heard of Fawaz Younis. Younis was the first terrorist rendered and it happened in 1987 while Ronald Reagan was President.

...

The orders signed by Obama do not preclude a terrorist suspect being rendered for judicial proceedings. That was never a problem not an objectionable matter. What President Obama is clearly signaling is an end to the practice of taking terrorist suspects and putting them in the hands of foreign governments that will torture for us. And there is nothing in the Executive Orders signed by Obama that contradicts that. But you would not know that if you read Miller’s piece.

Be sure to check it out in full.


Updated with this piece from Andrew Sullivan:

And so we are greeted with whoops and hollers because the Obama administration will return to the rendition policies of the GWH Bush and Clinton administrations. Note, as Hilzoy does, what this isn't. It is not the practice of "extraordinary rendition" that the Bush-Cheney administration pioneered to supplement its own torture program. It is the practice of capturing terror suspects and rendering them to non-torturing foreign governments for detention, interrogation or prosecution.

pat lang on intel reform

The ambivalently reasonable Pat Lang weighs in on intelligence reform:

I never thought that the 9/11 intelligence failure was a failure of analysis, i.e., a failure to "connect the dots." I have always thought that the problem was that there were not enough dots for the analysts to connect. In other words, the failure was one of information collection rather than analysis. Has that failure in the HUMINT area been "fixed." I do not know but the fact that we have not captured or killed "the tallest man in Afghanistan" gives one pause.

TPMs 2/2/09 in 100 seconds

gauntlet thrown at LCS

Retired Admiral James Lyons calls out the LCS:

The overall costs of the LCS are largely driven by the speed requirement of 50 knots. It can be safely assumed that between 30 percent and 40 percent of the current hull, mechanical and electrical (HM&E) costs are directly attributed to the speed requirement. It is not transparently clear what a 50 knot capability (as opposed to 30 knots) confers in the threat today of Mach 1-plus air and surface launched guided-stealthy missiles plus 70-plus-knot torpedoes. Furthermore, in any type of seaway, the ship will not operate at 50 knots nor will it operate at 50 knots in 20 feet of water unless the intention is to dig a trench in the seabed.

...

The Norwegian Aegis frigate, which is a derivative of the Spanish F-100 Aegis frigate, is a candidate that should receive careful consideration. It has a speed of 28 knots; is stealthy and is capable in terms of area AAW and ASW with its Aegis combat system, electro-optical director; hull mounted and towed array sonar, two MK82 fire-control radars, and 127MM and 76MM guns. It also has the capability to host organic manned and unmanned air and surface vehicles. The cost for this very capable warship is about $600 million. Its draft is 5 meters, which also compares favorably with the LCS.

...

There is no question that numbers of ship matter, but combat capability and survivability should be the governing criteria. The notion that somehow "little" combatants are expendable is nonsense. Certainly the crews are not, nor are the ships. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of time to redesign a small combatant. Until we do, we should embrace the European-Norwegian Aegis-type Frigate, which was principally designed for "littoral combat."

CDRSalamander and Galrahn weigh in. Galrahn says it best:

LCS was never intended to be a stand alone ship. Originally, the LCS was intended to be part of a larger networked approach to the littoral battlespace and the unmanned systems carried by LCS were intended to enable scouting in that network. The DDG-1000 and LCS were intended to operate together, enabling the others weakness. [...] The total littoral network concept was sound at a high level, questionable in implementation with DDG-1000 but still viable, but now that half the network was removed from the concept when the DDG-1000 was cut the current plan isn't a network, rather it has become a single node.

LCS and DDG-1000 are the FCS of the sea. The bottom line is that you can get your network paradigm without fancy new hulls. Period.

phelps bong hit raises decriminalization issue

The winningest Olympian of all time smokes pot. Be sure to let me know when he dies of the overdose.

Can we start taxing America's number one cash crop, please? Can we cut our prison population, largest in the world, in half, please? Can we deflate the cartel war going on in our backyard, please?

battle of wanat, part VI & VII

Tom Ricks has published the sixth and seventh parts of his analysis of what went wrong at Wanat.

trip-wire force in iraq

TPB advocates a South Korea DMZ-style "trip-wire" force in Iraqi Kurdistan. In other words, he wants us to keep enough skin in the game, for long enough, that for the foreseeable future we will serve as a strategic deterrent against.. a potential proxy showdown between Iranian Ayatollahs and the House of Saud.

I'm not buying it. The DMZ is a modern day Maginot line, a trip-wire in and of itself. It's a real, black and white barrier. How many acts of Iranian "intereference" with their Shiite brethren next door will constitute a tripped wire?

If our efforts to strengthen the existing Iraqi military, coupled with an already long-term "advisory" and CT (not to mention naval strike) presence aren't enough skin in the game already, then we're arguably playing the wrong game.

Promoting Saudi-Iranian dialogue by keeping American boots dirty between them? Please.

afghanistan: the right way

This is a good example of rational, reasoned, and realistic thinking WRT Tribal Engagement in Afghanistan, emerging (where else) straight from the company level:

The local tribes, all Pashto, include the Mangal, Moqbil, Jaji and Chamkani. Nomadic Kuchi tribes also make regular passages through the area, returning from Pakistan. Each tribe is divided into sub-tribes, all possessing unique cultures, norms and hierarchy of needs. Concepts such as national identity are far outweighed by loyalty to family, clan and tribe. Through the SF detachments’ analysis, it became clear that tactics, techniques and procedures used against a relatively sophisticated and networked adversary were going to need adjusting. Because all the tribes are concerned mostly with providing for their immediate future, successful engagement is simply a matter of making their lives a little better.

...

It appears that the Shkin-area elders are cooperating with the ANSF to improve security, eliminate insurgents and increase the stability of the government, but in reality, the elders have cooperated with the ANSF because it is a formidable force. Tribal elders would rather appease the ANSF and keep them from conducting operations in their villages than facilitate insurgents. In this immediate area, elders refuse to allow insurgent operations, to eliminate the risk of their village being targeted by the ANSF. The relationship between elders and Shkin ANSF works because of the overtly successful counterinsurgency operations of the ANSF rather than because the elders are working toward a unified Afghanistan.

Real, practical, useful insight born of hard-fought experience. This is typical of today's American company level commanders on down. Unfortunately, such thinking must overcome institutional obstacles to find a voice. If your plan works but doesn't make rank, your plan is not going to enjoy wide-scale realization.

"This younger generation is much more involved in fighting, have more influence, but the political leadership still belongs to Mullah Omar; and the older generation are active, but underground I think this younger generation have much more to say, and have become much more brutal."

A stark reminder that insurgencies have a much more darwinian incentives system in place.

hummer drivers are assholes, news at 11

Via Wired:

The study found those who drive the leviathans get 4.63 times as many tickets as the average driver, something the researchers attribute to the feeling of invincibility that comes from driving a rolling bank vault.

There's an inverse relationship to penis size in there somewhere too, I'm betting.

the last word on blago

Via failblog.

battle of wanat, part V

Tom Ricks has published the fifth part of his analysis of what went wrong at Wanat.

deep rot

Ian Welsh over at FDL is as good a read as Paul Krugman for understanding the state of the economy (maybe better). Virtually everything he publishes is worth your time. From his latest:

The problem, though, is larger than this. Fundamentally, most of the instruments at the heart of the financial crisis were sold based on fraud.

The mortgage backed CDOs were sold based on the assumption that a bubble in housing would continue forever, many of the homeowners' financials were deliberately not checked, and the mortgages were designed with resets which made higher default rates quite likely, but those high default rates weren't factored into the returns and risk sold to investors. Meanwhile homeowners were sold mortgages with the implicit assumption that housing prices would go up forever and there would never be another recession so "sure, you'll always be able to make the payments."

Read it all. The problem with his prescription is, of course, that Obama doesn't have the political chops to "cut the knots;" see: "post-partisan" stimulus bill.

Perhaps no president would.

zing!

Obama to Palin, at the annual Alfalfa dinner:

I never expected you to be PALLING AROUND with THIS crowd. I want to congratulate you on your Golden Globe for '30 Rock.'

the battle of wanat, part IV

Tom Ricks has published the fourth part of his analysis of what went wrong at Wanat.

blackwater banned in iraq

Via CNN:

brits and aussies wrestle with coin doctrine

These are two must-reads on the upcoming choices faced by Britain and Australia as dictated by the deterioration of Afghanistan:

On the state of Britain's armed forces, via the Economist:

David Kilcullen, until recently a counter-insurgency adviser to the American government, says both America and Britain misunderstood Iraq: America thought it was dealing with a terrorist problem rather than an insurgency; Britain thought its job was peacekeeping rather than imposing control. The subsequent bloodbath pushed the allies in opposite directions. Britain gave up the fight, cut a deal with militias terrorising Basra and got out of the city centre where soldiers were dying almost daily. As the junior allies, British officers felt they could do nothing in Basra to change the course of a war being lost, they thought, by American troops in Baghdad.

...

Britain badly needs a wholesale review of its defence policy. Two questions must be answered. Should the British continue to aspire to a global military role? And what sort of wars is the future likely to bring? If it is long messy ones like the fight in Afghanistan, the structure and equipment of the armed forces must change. One general complains: “We are acting as if Afghanistan is just an aberration. We are in huge danger of preparing for the wrong war.”

On Australia's Afghanistan dilemma, via the Sydney Morning Herald:

After seven years of neglect by the Bush administration, the war in Afghanistan is taking a new direction - that of a carefully planned counter-insurgency campaign - and Australia must decide whether to join such a fight. Should Australia decide to do so it will mean accepting a much greater risk of military casualties than it has previously done in Iraq or Afghanistan.

...

"People need to understand what is counter-insurgency, and in that to recognise that the narrative that we've had for a number of years in Afghanistan is potentially not the correct narrative for what is achievable - not taking in the history, traditions and tribal structures of the country."

the battle of wanat, part III

Tom Ricks has published the third part of his analysis of what went wrong at Wanat.

on erdogan's davos walkout

Turkish PM Erdogan walked out of a panel at Davos after he was cutoff from responding to Shimon Peres:



Siun at FDL tears into David Ignatius for provoking the walkout with his crap moderating:

Way to go, Ignatius. . . we can’t have a world leader reminding us that the Israeli actions in Gaza were “barbaric,” and that the Bible says “Thou shalt not kill.” After all, we wouldn’t want the elite at Davos to be late for dinner, now would we?

Tony Blair weighs in on Al Jazeera from the rose-colored glasses gallery:



For a more reality based set of analyses on Gaza, read this set of opinions published at the National Journal.

abdul qadeer khan is tripping

Via Wired, a critique of notorious proliferator A.Q. Khan's personal website:

It is rare that a person in single life time accomplishes so much. This is done only by men who are endowed with special abilities by God and who prepare themselves through hard work and devotion to fulfill the mission of serving mankind.

It loses something in the translation, I'm sure, from the original LSD.

Trippy.

notes on iran

Via Siun at FDL, a quick writeup of the interception by the U.S.S. San Antonio of a Cypriot-flagged Iranian vessel carrying arms, originally thought to be headed to Gaza. The interdiction was scuttled when the arms turned out to be artillery shells apparently bound for a much more conventional military than Hamas'.

The Cypriot flagged Iranian ship later docked in Egypt where it was being searched but no sources detail what was found. US Combined Task Force 151 is the navy force assigned to preventing Somali piracy.

Meanwhile, Springbored at USNI theorizes that the U.S. Commerce Department's efforts to prevent Iran from buying (U.S. made) speedboats from South Africa may just be a ploy to shut down a possible Uranium smuggling vector:

Just seems odd that Iran is reaching so far afield, when there are plenty of go-fasts within easy reach. But then, if we note that South Africa holds 7 percent of the worlds economically recoverable uranium reserves and is the eleventh biggest producer of uranium, alarm bells start ringing. Maybe there’s something else afoot? Perhaps.

What do so about all this speculation and uncertainty? How about a review of what our intelligence agencies know or don't know about Iran?

Pat Lang describes the way for such a review:

What should it be called? Ah. Perhaps "National Intelligence Estimate - Iran" would be a good title.

Should get interesting.

the battle of wanat, part II

As per the previous feature on this, you can check out part II here.

the macintosh dating game

...ridiculous. Via TUAW:

hey dick armey: put this in your pipe and smoke it

Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act today. Via Gail Collins at the NYT:

Obama told her story over and over when he campaigned for president: How Ledbetter, now 70, spent years working as a plant supervisor at a tire factory in Alabama. How, when she neared retirement, someone slipped her a pay schedule that showed her male colleagues were making much more money than she was. A jury found her employer, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, to be really, really guilty of pay discrimination. But the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision led by the Bush appointees, threw out Ledbetter’s case, ruling that she should have filed her suit within 180 days of the first time Goodyear paid her less than her peers.

(Let us pause briefly to contemplate the chances of figuring out your co-workers’ salaries within the first six months on the job.)

Until the Supreme Court stepped in, courts generally presumed that the 180-day time limit began the last time an employee got a discriminatory pay check, not the first. In an attempt at bipartisan comity, the Senate decided to simply restore the status quo, rejecting House efforts to make the law tougher. Even then, only five Republican senators voted for it — four women and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is currently the most threatened of the deeply endangered species known as moderate Republicans.

That's the best answer to paleolithic Dick that I could think of.

republican death spiral

Via Nate Silver at 538:

Boenher and Eric Cantor have obviously done an impressive job of rallying their troops -- and Cantor, in particular, seems proud of his efforts. But what grander purpose does this strategy serve? The House Republicans are opposing popular legislation from a very popular President, and doing so in ways that stick a needle in the eye of the popular (if quixotic) concept of bipartisanship. They would seem to have little chance of actually blocking this legislation, since they are far short of a majority, and since the Senate Republicans, who can filibuster, have thus far shown little inclination to go along with them -- with moderates like Susan Collins of Maine and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire voting routinely with the Administration.

...

Thus the Republicans, arguably, are in something of a death spiral. The more conservative, partisan, and strident their message becomes, the more they alienate non-base Republicans. But the more they alienate non-base Republicans, the fewer of them are left to worry about appeasing. Thus, their message becomes continually more appealing to the base -- but more conservative, partisan, and strident to the rest of us. And the process loops back upon itself.

The other possibility, of course, is that John Boehner and Eric Cantor are not so much concerned about the future of the Republican party, but about the future of John Boehner and Eric Cantor. Cantor, in particular, is a media-savvy figure and someone with plausible presidential ambitions: one can easily imagine him trying to position himself as the new Gingrich. But the political climate is much different now than it was in 1993; he can't erase either the damage wrought upon the Republican brand by the Bush administration, nor -- at least in the near-term -- Obama's sky-high approval ratings. Perhaps the House Republicans voted against delaying the digital TV changeover because they don't want Americans to see the carnage.

the evolving coin consensus on afghanistan

Some good advice from a guest blog feature titled "How not to Lose Afghanistan" at the New York Times:

John Nagl:

“However, insurgencies are not defeated by foreign forces. They are defeated by the security services of the afflicted nation. Thus the long-term answer to the Taliban’s insurgency has to be a much expanded Afghan National Army. Currently 70,000 and projected to grow to 135,000, the Afghan army is the most respected institution in that troubled country. It may need to reach 250,000, and be supported by a similarly sized police force, to provide the security that will cause the Taliban to wither. Building such an Afghan Army will be a long-term effort that will require American equipment and advisers for many years, but since the Afghans can field about 70 troops for the cost of one deployed American soldier, there is no faster, cheaper or better way to win.”

Parag Khanna:

“Even if an additional 30,000 American and NATO troops were deployed in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban problem would not be reduced. It would merely be pushed back over the Pakistan border, destabilizing Pakistan’s already volatile North-West Frontier Province, which itself is more populous than Iraq. This amounts to squeezing a balloon on one end to inflate it on the other.”

Also, the following from Norman Seip, via SWJ:

“In the future, Soft Power will be applied across the spectrum of military operations, combining kinetic effects (Hard Power) with economic, political, cultural and military Soft Power campaigns — a concept termed “Smart Power” by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her confirmation hearings. For military members, Soft Power employment must become part of the services’ core competencies, second nature to the warfighter and planner.

In doing so, militaries will have to involve other vital contributors — an evolution as dramatic for the services as the “joint” movement of the 1980s — such as Department of State, government agencies, law enforcement, non-governmental organizations and private enterprise.”

Finally, "Aligning a Counterinsurgency Strategy for Afghanistan," from Lt. Col. Raymond Millen at SWJ, deserves a full reading:

As this article reveals, the principle of Subsidiarity forms the underlying approach to a counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. In essence, Subsidiarity embraces decentralization of governance to the lowest level. Because this form of federalism has a long-standing tradition in Afghanistan (as well as the West), the populace readily accepts the concept. This concept permits the central government to focus on national issues. However, it does not signify neglect. Rather, it permits federal, international, and coalition agencies to empower local communities in a decentralized manner without deleterious intrusion from above. In short, it shifts the counterinsurgency effort to the local communities.

a must read: pakistan in peril

On the heels of my purely tactical analysis of why Pakistan is likely to have given tacit approval for CIA airstrikes inside its territory, comes this truly eye opening book review of "Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia," by Ahmed Rashid. From William Dalrymple of The New York Review of Books:

Few had very high expectations of Zardari, the notoriously corrupt playboy widower of Benazir Bhutto. Nevertheless, the speed of the collapse that has taken place under his watch has amazed almost all observers.

...

Meanwhile tens of thousands of ordinary people from the surrounding hills of the semiautonomous tribal belt—the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that run along the Afghan border—have fled from the conflict zones blasted by missiles from unmanned American Predator drones and strafed by Pakistani helicopter gunships to the tent camps now ringing Peshawar.



The tribal areas have never been fully under the control of any Pakistani government, and have always been unruly, but they have now been radicalized as never before. The rain of armaments from US drones and Pakistani ground forces, which have caused extensive civilian casualties, daily add a steady stream of angry footsoldiers to the insurgency. Elsewhere in Pakistan, anti-Western religious and political extremism continues to flourish.

...

Other civilian convoys have been allowed to continue, but only after paying a toll to the Taliban, who now, in effect, control the Khyber Pass, the key land route between Pakistan and Afghanistan. At the moment more than 70 percent of supplies for the US troops in Afghanistan travel through the NWFP to Peshawar and hence up the Khyber Pass. The US is now trying to work out alternative supply routes for its troops in Afghanistan via several Central Asian republics—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, which has the important Manas Air Base—all of which have themselves been markedly radicalized since 2001.

...

Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the rise of Iran as a major regional power, the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the wreckage of Iraq, with over two million external refugees and the ethnic cleansing of its Christian population, and now the implosion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, probably the most dangerous development of all.

This is the most damning statement I came across:

By building up public hysteria and presenting a vision of an Islamic world eaten up with irrational hatred of America, an unspoken feeling was generated among Americans that, as Rashid puts it,

if they hated us, then Americans should hate Muslims back and retaliate not just against the terrorists but against Islam in general. By generating such fears it was virtually impossible to gain American public attention and support for long-term nation building.

The following speaks effectively to the Jihadi-as-strategic-weapon issue that I briefly touched on in the tacit approval post:

Since the days of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen, the Pakistani army saw the jihadis as an ingenious and cost-effective means of both dominating Afghanistan—something they finally achieved with the retreat of the Soviets in 1987—and bogging down the Indian army in Kashmir—something they succeeded in achieving from 1990 onward.

...

About a dozen Indian divisions had been tied up in Kashmir during the late 1990s to suppress a few thousand well-trained, paradise-seeking guerrillas. What more could Pakistan ask?

It is for this reason that many in the army still believe that the jihadis make up a more practical defense against Indian dominance than even nuclear weapons. For them, supporting a range of jihadi groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir is not an ideological or religious whim so much as a practical and patriotic imperative—a vital survival strategy for a Pakistani state that they perceive to be threatened by India's ever-growing power and its alliance with the hostile Karzai regime in Kabul.

...

So it was, only months after September 11, that the ISI was giving refuge to the entire Taliban leadership after it fled from Afghanistan. Mullah Omar was kept in an ISI safehouse in the town of Quetta, just south of the tribal areas in Baluchistan, near the Afghan border, while his militia was lodged in Pashtunabad, a sprawling Quetta suburb. Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, the leader of the radical Mujahideen militia Hizb-e- Islami, was lured back from exile in Iran and allowed to operate freely outside Peshawar, while Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the most violent Taliban commanders, was given sanctuary by the ISI in north Waziristan, a part of FATA.

Bin Laden, I'm sure, is not far from them.