Official White House Photo
–You can read Rolling Stone‘s full piece on Stanley McChrystal here. The general and his inner circle were something beyond cavalier and insulted a lot of people, but probably the most troubling aspect to the White House is that the commander of American forces in Afghanistan brazenly impugned the …
The troubles in Afghanistan.
It appears that Andrew Exum, who has been part of McChrystal’s kitchen cabinet of civilian advisers, is thinking along the same lines.
Update: Max Boot disagrees, but it’s interesting: he offers zero analysis of the current predicament. Just blind faith that “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” This …
Dexter Filkins has an entirely depressing report about the complexities of life in Pashtunistan today. It’s the story of a warlord in Oruzgan province, which is just north of Kandahar, who is being paid by the US to provide security on the highway from Kandahar to Oruzgan. His private army also works in conjunction with US Special Forces …
One of the most remarkable qualities about General Stanley McChrystal is his remarkable candor…and now he has called the benighted campaign to secure Marjah what it is: “a bleeding ulcer.” The question is, why on earth did McChrystal decide to go in there in the first place? When he first arrived, the general questioned the enhanced US …
It will be days before we can unpack what actually happened in this week’s meetings between U.S. and Afghan officials. The big question concerns reconciliation: Will the U.S. back Hamid Karzai’s efforts to lure the Taliban into a coalition government? In the meantime, the estimable Spencer Ackerman has a report from a source in Kandahar, …
In a joint press conference with Hamid Karzai at the White House Wednesday, President Obama spoke rather directly about an issue that is central to his Afghan strategy.
When there is a civilian casualty, that is not just a political problem for me. I am ultimately accountable, just as General McChrystal is accountable, for somebody
…
Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson
–Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Washington today for meetings with President Obama. Our colleague Tony Karon writes it will be a tense debate over when and how to strike a deal with the Taliban. Marc Ambinder describes the optics: “two parents who tolerate each other and cannot …
Marc Thiessen, the Washington Post’s new pro-torture columnist, has a typically brutish piece today in which he argues that if we only treated our latest Taliban trophy-capture, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the same way we treated Khalid Sheik Mohammed–i.e. waterboarded him in a CIA black site–we might find out who was running the Time …
David Ignatius has a good account of the issues at stake as Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai arrives in Washington this week. I’d probably put a bit more emphasis on the reconciliation issue–to my mind, the big question this week is whether the President will give Karzai approval to begin formal talks with the Taliban. The U.S. military is …
One of the big changes in the U.S. military over the course of my career has been the diminution of happy talk and propaganda designed to hoodwink the public about the true situation on the ground in war zones. There are no more 5 o’clock follies–a reference only those of us old enough to remember Vietnam will understand (it refers to …
The deadtree cover this week is TIME’s annual 100 most influential people of the year. Who’d we miss? Who shouldn’t be on this list? Let the debate begin.
Update:
Even better: TIME’s least influential list. Hysterical.
Ahmed Rashid, perhaps the best informed journalist in the world when it comes to Afghanistan and Pakistan, confirms my belief that Hamid Karzai’s recent maneuverings are part of a reconciliation strategy with the Taliban:
According to U.S. and Afghan officials, Karzai’s first question when he arrives will be whether Washington supports
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An excellent primer lies below from TIME’s London bureau chief, Catherine Mayer, of what to expect from Thursday night’s second ever debate of British prime ministerial candidates. The first debate catapulted Nick Clegg into newfound stardom – he’s even overtaken or tied Prime Minister Gordon Brown in some polls — so it’ll be …
