Hard as it may be to recall now, when the Afghan presidential election originally came off, the US State Department praised it as well-run and closely scrutinized , even as President Karzai's political supporters organized 800 completely fictitious polling places to garner phoney votes. Now, thanks primarily to public pressure brought to bear by Peter Galbraith (resulting in UN election observer Kal Eide finally admitting that Karzai's election was fraudulent) , the US has reluctantly joined those agreeing that a run-off will be necessary after first suggesting that we would not allow one . In fact, this has no opened up something of a breach between the Obama administration and Senator John Kerry (who was, if you recall, one of the other finalists to become Secretary of State, and who might well be Hillary Clinton's replacement if she decides to quit and run for Governor of New York). Kerry says no decision about US troop levels should be made until there is a legitimatel...

... which is something we need to admit before too many more young Americans, Brits, Canadians, Germans, and Italians die to prove it to our military and political leadership. Yes, with the 40-45,000 additional troops that General McChrystal wants , we could win a short-term victory against the Taliban, at the cost of several thousand casualties over the next three years. But what then? Exactly how long is the United States willing to leave a garrison force of 50-100,000 in Afghanistan to enforce the so-called peace? Five years? Twenty? Nor can we depend on the Afghan security forces, whose budget will be nearly four times the GDP of the entire country. The Canadians, it seems, are being much more honest about this than the Americans, as The Independent reports : It is instructive to turn at this moment to the Canadian army, which has in Afghanistan fewer troops than the Brits but who have suffered just as ferociously; their 130th soldier was killed near Kandahar this week. Every t...

Now that we have generals running our foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, this is what you can expect : Speaking on the eight-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack, top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal says that he sees no indication of any large al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal’s comments come at a time when the Obama Administration is facing an increasing revolt over the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and officials have used the “threat” posed by al-Qaeda as their primary justification for continuing the conflict. Seemingly oblivious to having already dismissed the conflict’s ostensible raison d’etre, the general continued to defend the war, maintaining that it was winnable given increased effort and insisting that, while he had no evidence to back it up, he “strongly believes” the war has prevented other terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, the Taliban insurgency continues to spread; the Christian Science Monitor : Long...

... is on par with the democracy we once established in South Vietnam. Now I'm down to waiting a few years to watch scenes of the last American helicopters departing Kabul, because Harmid Karzai is turning into the Taliban's secret weapon. My only remaining questions are: 1) Is Karzai best considered as Ngo Dinh Diem, Duong Van Minh, or Nguyen Van Thieu ? 2) Who will ultimately emerge as the Taliban's Vo Nguyen Giap ? 3) When will the first parallel biography comparing Robert McNamara to Robert Gates be published?

... with four more months to go.

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...

This is actually remarkable in its brazen departure from common sense [or any sense of history and/or irony]: “The Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated,” the Admiral conceded. “Their tactics just in my recent visits out there and talking with our troops certainly indicated that.” He said Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal would not ask for additional specific numbers of troops in his assessment, but suggested that such a request was likely forthcoming in the next several weeks. Admiral Mullen also expressed “concern” over the flagging public support for the Afghan War , as several polls have shown that the American public is now firmly opposed to the continuation of the eight-year long war. He insisted, however, that the war would continue, because the president has ordered that it will continue. During his Meet the Press interview, host David Gregory asked whether or not the massive escalation of the war and pledges of enormous government aid for nation...

Here's how President Obama characterized the Afghan elections today, as reported by that legend of objectivity Voice of America : U.S. President Barack Obama says Afghanistan's elections appear to have been successful, despite attempts by the Taliban to disrupt them with violence. Here, to help us define success as the Obama Administration apparently sees it, is Anti-war.com : Polls in Afghanistan closed today at 5 pm local time (8:30 am EST), following a one hour extension announced by authorities hoping to get the reportedly anemic turnout to a more respectable number. It does not appear to have been very effective, however, as the turnout has been quite a bit lower than officials had hoped. Turnout was particularly low in the Pashtun-heavy south, a sign of Taliban strength in the region but also potentially a negative sign for President Karzai’s chances of winning reelection in the first round , as he was seen to need a significant Pashtun turnout to claim such a victory w...

WaPo : As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war. Since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago, the United States has spent $223 billion on war-related funding for that country, according to the Congressional Research Service. Aid expenditures, excluding the cost of combat operations, have grown exponentially, from $982 million in 2003 to $9.3 billion last year. The costs are almost certain to keep growing. The Obama administration is in the process of overhauling the U.S. approach to Afghanistan, putting its focus on long-term security, economic sustainability and development. That approach is also likely to require deployment of more American military personnel, at the very least to train additional Afghan security forces. Later this month, Gen. Stanley A. McChrys...

Unbelievable : WASHINGTON - Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed force s. The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times on its Web site. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners. U.S. officials said Friday they did not have legal grounds to investigate the deaths because only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country. The Times cited U.S. military and CIA ties to Afghan Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom human rights groups accuse of ordering the killings. The newspaper said the Defense Department and FBI never fully investigated the incident. Asked about the report, Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that since U.S. military forc...

A lot of Republicans trotted out the idea (hopefully, I suspect) that in electing Barack Obama America was getting Jimmy Carter's second term. I'm beginning to think that LBJ might be a more apt comparison (granted that JFK had been assassinated and Dubya only assassinated the legitimacy of his own presidency). LBJ wanted the Great Society to be his legacy to the United States; instead, he is forever linked to quagmire and failure in Vietnam. President Obama is today concentrating massive efforts on domestic politics as well (stimulus, cap and trade, health care); but he is also running a very real risk of being linked to a similar quagmire and failure in the Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan theater. Simon Jenkins of The Guardian : If good intentions ever paved a road to hell, they are doing so in Afghanistan. History rarely declares when folly turns to disaster, but it does so now. Barack Obama and his amanuensis, Gordon Brown, are uncannily repeating the route taken by American lead...

Admiral Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has discovered (surprise! surprise!) that we're killing large numbers of civilians with our bombing campaign in Afghanistan : Two weeks ago, a US air strike in Afghainstan’s Farah Province killed around 140 civilians, making it by far the deadliest single incident since the 2001 American invasion. Such incidents, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen today conceded, are putting America’s strategy in the seemingly endless war in jeopardy. “We cannot succeed in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but let’s talk specifically about Afghanistan, by killing Afghan civilians,” Admiral Mullen declared today at a talk at the Brookings Institution. “We can’t keep going through incidents like this and expect the strategy to work.” The toll sparked protests from local civilians, and a demand from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to end all US air strikes inside the nation. Admiral Mullen insisted that rules had been in place f...

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...

--I mean, that President Obama, who decided it was necessary to go to that well at least one more time--even though candidate Obama condemned the maneuver and Senator Obama voted against it: Antiwar congressman and activists who played a key role in Mr Obama's election campaign criticised him for deploying the same "off the books" funding tactic that were introduced by his predecessor George W Bush. Mr Bush was accused of trying to mask the overall cost of the two conflicts – which now stands at virtually $1 trillion - by funding them via annual "emergency" supplements rather than through the usual budgetary process. The White House says the request, placed on Thursday evening, was needed to secure funding for the current fiscal year and that it will be the last made in this form before the first Obama budget kicks in. "This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan. The process by which this has been funded over the course of the past many ye...

My old friend Waldo seems to think I've gone Republican: On the other end of the spectrum lie the were-Libertarians. Unlike werewolves, who transform according to the lunar cycle, were-Libertarians transform from standard-issue Republicans every two years at election time. Take, for example, this Grassley-like pronouncement by The Delaware Libertarian: Make no mistake: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and whatever comes after are now President Barack Obama's war. Do the Republicans become more hip broadcasting the same old reactionary message by a new technological means? Should I be more likely to vote for policies counter to my interests jsut because I learn about how the Republicans want to screw me via cell phone? And why should I want to become a Libertarian if, in the off season, they just peddle GOP talking points (as if Barr-Root wasn't enough of a betrayal of that for which they claim to stand)?... As much as we admire the Libertarians, no amount of shitty Republican off-y...

Make no mistake: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and whatever comes after are now President Barack Obama's war. He campaigned on it, primarily because by making such a big issue of his non-support for the decision to go to war in Iraq, and his opposition to the Surge, he needed something that would make him appear strong enough to defend the national interest. He got Afghanistan, I've come to think, either directly or indirectly from Joe Biden, who has always thought we should be there in force, going mano e mano through the caves of Tora Bora looking under rocks for bin Laden. It made great sound bites: We took our eye off the ball and The real frontline on the war on terror is in Afghanistan or ever I will order drone strikes across the Pakistani border . Today, President Obama officially made this his war, following up the 17,000 additional combat troops he's already started in motion there with 4,000 trainers from the 82nd Airborne, a new legion of civilian advisors and tec...