Sometimes it doesn't take paragraphs of analysis to get the point across. From Politics Daily : Half a million Americans have served two 12-month tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; 70,000 have served three combat tours; and 20,000 have served five or more deployments, according to Defense Department data. That's one out of every 600 American citizens.

Now let's see, General McChrystal wants another 20,000 troops for Afghanistan, where we are going to stay either for several more years or several more decades, depending on whether you believe the US military or the British military. Ultimately, with contractors and support troops in the Indian Ocean and central Asia, this will give us well over 100,000 troops fighting or supporting the Afghan-Pakistan war. At the same time, the Obama administration is scaling back any thought that we will actually start withdrawing troops from Iraq prior to the 30 January 2010 election. We'll have about 130,000 troops there--so that means we will have (again considering support units based in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf) closer to 200,000 folks in that region. That's naught, naught, carry the naught, and--oh shit, Uncle Jed--we've got well over a quarter-million Americans fighting two different wars, neither of which is going very well at the moment. Oh--and befo...

That's what the MSM is reporting (though not too loudly): US media has reported that [General Stanley] McChrystal is considering three options, including a “high risk” strategy of adding just 15,000 troops to the 68,000 troops that would be on the ground by year’s end. A “medium risk” strategy would add 25,000 troops and a “low risk” option would be to send in 45,000. Meanwhile, in the face of growing popular disagreement with continuing to fight this war, Admiral Mullen trots out the old fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here argument: WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda remains “very capable” of attacking the United States, the top US military officer said Sunday as he tried to boost waning US support for the conflict in Afghanistan. Nearly eight years after the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed some 3,000 people, Al-Qaeda is “still very capable, very focused on it,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “They als...

There is, at least from my jaundiced point of view, some hope in the world today, as Delhi's High Court overturns the Indian law declaring same-sex relationships an unnatural act worth ten years imprisonment : Delhi's High Court ruled that the law outlawing homosexual acts was discriminatory and a "violation of fundamental rights". The court said that a statute in Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines homosexual acts as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" and made them illegal, was an "antithesis of the right to equality". The ruling will inevitably be challenged in such a predominantly homophobic society, as evidenced by the statement of a major Indian mullah: The head cleric of Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, criticised the ruling. "This is absolutely wrong. We will not accept any such law," Ahmed Bukhari told the AFP news agency. What comforts me--and should provide an example for American Christian...

Interesting question. For the longest time you have been able to get these little widgets that track deaths and casualties in Iraq. Mostly they were political toys to smack your opponents, and pretty much all references to them, or to our casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have sort of ... disappeared from the MSM. It's sometimes difficult to recall that by December 2008, combat operations in Iraq had killed 4,538 and wounded 30,930 troops, over 95% of whom were Americans. Likewise, combat operations in Afghanistan had taken 1,045 lives and maimed another 5,647 military personnel--again mostly Americans. [These statistics do not include American civilians, military contractors, or indigenous peoples .] That's 42,160 combat casualties-- as measured from Defense Department stats via casualties.org --under the Bush administration in two wars. What does the future hold for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Difficult to tell, as the situation in both countries is--to be as ch...

Last week Afghan President Karzai, responding to mounting civilian casualties from American bombing, called for it to stop: Ending his visit to the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States end its air strikes in his country, saying that the rising death toll was infuriating the public. “We believe strongly that airstrikes are not an effective way of fighting terrorism, that airstrikes rather cause civilian casualties,” Karzai declared. Today he has his answer: National Security Adviser James Jones says that despite the rather pointed demands from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the United States will not stop launching air strikes inside of Afghanistan. Such a move, the official insisted, would be “imprudent.” Yet Jones did not seem at all concerned when asked what Karzai’s reaction to the continued attacks would be, saying “I think he understands that we have to have the full complement of our offensive military power when we need it.” Which is n...

... as our war in Iraq, supposedly won by the Surge, grinds into its death throes as we prepare to depart. Iraniana helicopters are not conducting cross-border raids into Kurdish territory. The militias that General Petraeus paid off are starting to defect, now that (surprise, surprise) the money has stopped flowing. As the British prepare to pull out of Basra, the security situation is now worse than when they got there (and when they got there it was unrestrained anarchy between warring factions). American casualties, strangely unreported in the MSM these days, continue to rise. Our own puppet government in Iraq declares our operations in raids to be criminal violations of the withdrawal agreement, but discovers (again: surprise, surprise) that the US does not intend to allow them to deal with those violations in their own court system. We have many friends, especially those who style themselves as Libertarian Republicans , who have not yet come to grips with this salient fact: our...

The mantra I now hear daily on talk radio is that investigations into torture (excuse me, enhanced interrogation techniques) will only target the people who kept us [the ungrateful wimps who care about human rights] safe . They argue that if it took 183 applications of water to Khalid Sheik Muhammed or 83 to Abu Zubayah in a single month to gather actionable intelligence that saved American lives, then even torture is justified... Except that information is now coming to light that the harsh treatment of KSM and AZ may not have occurred in pursuit of actionable intelligence after all , but was instead ordered by the Bush administration to create a pretext for the invasion of Iraq . From McClatchy : WASHINGTON — The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a...

Overseas contingency operations will replace the war on terror . We will no longer use the term enemy combatants even though we will still engage in extraordinary rendition and we assert the power to hold people pretty much forever without charges. President Obama will keep his promise to withdraw all combat brigades from Iraq by renaming them: Despite President Barack Obama's statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina Feb. 27 that he had "chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months," a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label. A spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Lt. Col. Patrick S. Ryder, told IPS Tuesday that "several advisory and assistance brigades" would be part of a U.S. command in Iraq that will be "re-designated" as a "transition force headquarters" af...

All of a sudden, Democratic congressional leaders can't quite square promises of an Iraq withdrawal by August 2010 that leaves more troops (50,000 plus) there than we will have in Afghanistan: From WaPo : President Obama has invited members of Congress to the White House for a meeting later this afternoon to discuss his plans for drawing down troops in Iraq -- a plan that has already drawn stiff criticism from his Democratic allies. After Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained that the level of troops -- 50,000 -- who would remain in Iraq is too high, other senior Democrats voiced similar concerns on Thursday. Among Democratic leaders, only Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois is defending the new Obama plan, which will take three months longer than he promised and still leave a significant force structure on the ground. "I'm happy to listen to the secretary of defense and the president, but when they talk about 50,000, that's a little higher number than I had anticipated," S...

Last week I reported on the 221,000 weapons "unaccounted for" in Afghanistan. Now, the latest estimate is that $125 Billion (enough to buy me a strong government interest in two or three major banks) sent to Iraq for rebuilding has just sort of ... disappeared. From The Raw Story : The US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), the Army's criminal Investigation Command and the Justice Department are investigating US soldiers and officials in the alleged misuse of a portion of the $125 billion initially sent to Iraq for reconstruction shortly after the fall of Saddam.... "In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in 'pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills' to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money," wrote Cockburn. "He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering. ...

... is something that fauxLibertarian Republican is all about these days. Based on two MSM news reports [one ABC, one NPR], Eric Dondero has declared the so-called war on terror to be essentially won in Iraq and Afghanistan, while chiding the left-wing libertarian media for ignoring the story. The problem, as usual, is that Eric has his facts ... wrong. If the war in Iraq had been essentially won , then it would behoove somebody to explain why Generals Petraeus and Odierno think that we cannot safely get out of the country : Petraeus, Gates, and Odierno had hoped to sell Obama on a plan that they formulated in the final months of the Bush administration that aimed at getting around a key provision of the U.S.-Iraqi withdrawal agreement signed envisioned re-categorizing large numbers of combat troops as support troops. That subterfuge was by the United States last November while ostensibly allowing Obama to deliver on his campaign promise.... The opening argument by the Petraeus-O...

Earlier today I posted that PM Karzai of Afghanistan seeking closer ties with India to the detriment of Pakistan appears to be one of the reasons for the US beginning attempts to oust him. Here's some more meat to that Reuters story, and be sure to note the Iranian connection: KABUL, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai and India's foreign minister opened a new road on Thursday that will help link Afghanistan with a port in Iran and challenge Pakistani dominance of trade routes into the landlocked country. The 220-km (135-mile) road in the southwest Afghan province of Nimroz is the centrepiece of a $1.1 billion Indian reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. It has drawn sniping from Pakistan, worried about its rival's growing influence there. India, denied access through Pakistan, hopes to be able to deliver goods to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chahbahar, and this has triggered fears in Pakistan it is being encircled. "This project symbolises Ind...

I guess I should be pleased that Eric Dondero of fauxLibertarian Republican lists lil' ole me among the leaders of the Libertarian Left (even if I'm not by any means an anarchist): Libertarian Party Anarchist/AntiWar faction - Gene Berkman, Steve Newton, Mary Ruwart, Tom Knapp, Trent Hill, George Phillies, Todd Andrew Barnette, et.al. Each of these individuals and organizations are highly respected leaders of the left wing of the overall libertarian movement. For years they have brutalized Bush and Republicans over the Iraq War. They have taken vitriolic jabs at anyone, even among libertarians, who supported the War. Now that the Mission in Iraq has been Accomplished, not a single one of them, has come out and admitted that perhaps they were wrong Before I respond, let's capture the essence of Eric's complaint: To this day, the Libertarian Left has been completely silent on the success of the Surge. Not a single Leftist Libertarian has given any credit to Bush for the...

... it usually ain't pretty. Make no mistake: our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are the result of decisions made by Dubya's administration. But it is now becoming equally clear that President-elect Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric about a withdrawal from Iraq, and about winning the war in Afghanistan will have fallen to the grim realities on the ground even before Inauguration Day. Here's what senior Iraqi officials are now saying , that the US needs a military presence there for at least a decade: Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said some U.S. forces could be needed for 10 years but told reporters that the terms of any extended presence would be negotiated between the next Iraqi and U.S. governments. Washington and Baghdad recently negotiated a status of forces agreement, or SOFA, that calls for U.S. forces to leave Iraq's cities by mid-2009 and withdraw from the country by the end of 2011. The pact takes effect...

Apparently the major sticking point in the final negotiations over American withdrawal from Iraq is not the timetable, but the question of immunity for American troops. From the Associated Press : One Iraqi official said persuading the Americans to accept a timetable was a "key achievement" of the talks and that the government would seek parliamentary ratification as soon as the deal is signed. But differences over immunity could scuttle the whole deal, the Iraqis said. One of the officials described immunity as a "minefield" and said each side was sticking by its position. One official said U.S. negotiator David Satterfield told him that immunity for soldiers was a "red line" for the United States. The official said he replied that issue was "a red line for us too." The official said the Iraqis were willing to grant immunity for actions committed on American bases and during combat operations -- but not a blanket exemption from Iraqi law. The Ir...

Context is always important--a fact too often lost in the posts at Libertarian Republican. Today's post, for example, is entitled Saddam Hussein's WMD enabling yellow cake shipped to Canada: How will the Anti-War Libertarians ever explain this one? Here's the mud that Eric Dondero attempts to fling at Iraq war critics among the Libertarian movement (and presumably all you other Iraq war critics as well): Early in the War, in 2003, two US Soldiers were hospitalized for burns suffered while handling sarin and mustard gas laced weaponry on the battlefield. Additionally that same year, weapons inspector teams uncovered plans for Hussein's WMD program burried in the rose garden of one of Saddam's top weapons scientists. In 2004, Polish Soldiers uncovered a number of missiles in an abandoned warehouse, and a year after that, US Soldiers found 500 additional sarin and mustard gas laced missiles in another warehouse. Both stories were mentioned by the media in passing, an...

Eric Dondero's Libertarian (huh?) Republican is making a great deal these days out of belated MSM reports that the Surge in Iraq has reduced daily violence and apparently increased social stability. Here are Eric's concluding sentiments: Liberals are falling all over themselves nowadays to admit they were wrong on the Surge. So much so, in fact, that as Brooks points out, they've taken to the line of it's time to bring the boys home due to that success. The only hold outs these days seem to be the Anti-War Libertarians who still to this day stubbornly refuse to acknowledge Bush's success in Iraq: Ron Paulists, LewRockwell.com, Anthony Gregory, Justin Raimondo, Eric Garris, Thomas L. Knapp, Doug Bandow, Dave Boaz, the Cato Institute foreign policy team, Reason Magazine, and many others on the leftside of the libertarian movement. They just can't bring themselves to admit they were wrong. I'd guess that I qualify in Dondero's book as a Left Libertarian , ...

. . . even when it came to Iraq. Conveniently, the $164 billion war funding bill will remove any immediate pressure on a newly elected President (say, a former junior Illinois Senator) to make immediate decisions about withdrawal, as it secures continued funding for the fighting well into next year. But at least the very principled majority in the House of Representatives won some very important concessions (a large pork sandwich) in exchange for selling out pretty much everything they campaigned on in 2006 : Democrats opposed to the war, however, succeeded in using the Iraq funding bill as an engine to drive past White House resistance a sweeping revision to GI Bill college benefits and a 13-week extension of unemployment checks for those whose benefits have run out. Anybody want to take bets on whether the presumptive Democratic nominee will make any public comment on this proud display of intestinal fortitude?

Note: long, academic-type post warning. Be prepared for some heavy wading. Recently, I suggested that Edward Said's insight in his work Orientalism --that Westerners often confuse their understanding of foreign nations, individuals, or events for objective truth, could be applied profitably to Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the so-called War on Terror . Where to start? Try a 1999 monograph by Professor M. J. Gohari of Oxford entitled The Taliban: Ascent to Power . Two factors make this book particularly interesting: 1) Its pre-9/11 perspective--what was a scholar writing about bin Laden (he devoted an entire chapter to Bin Laden in that time predicting about his future importance? 2) Its non-Western (at least partly) perspective. Here's the review that Oxford University Press chose to put on the back cover: This is an informative account of Afghanistan under Taliban rule. While there is a lot of material on the Taliban [this] covers all aspects of the country. . . . Th...