Back In Afghanistan

The man who killed bin Laden needs to decide how quickly to pull the plug on Afghanistan:

Steeper Pullout Is Raised as Option for Afghanistan
By DAVID E. SANGER, ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.”

These new considerations, along with a desire to find new ways to press the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to get more of his forces to take the lead, are combining to create a counterweight to an approach favored by the departing secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, and top military commanders in the field. They want gradual cuts that would keep American forces at a much higher combat strength well into next year, senior administration officials said.

The cost of the war and Mr. Karzai’s uneven progress in getting his forces prepared have been latent issues since Mr. Obama took office. But in recent weeks they have gained greater political potency as Mr. Obama’s newly refashioned national security team takes up the crucial decision of the size and the pace of American troop cuts, administration and military officials said. Mr. Obama is expected to address these decisions in a speech to the nation this month, they said.

I favor the classic "Declare victory and go home" approach.  One hopes that having killed bin Laden, Obama feels he has sufficient cred on national security to stop posturing as a tough guy on Afghanistan.

Comments

[jimmyk]

I think he has to wait long enough to pull out so that he can be sure Afghanistan isn't a raging bloodbath before November 2012. That's his only consideration.

[Jack is Back!]

Read "Tournament of Shadows" and you will see he won't be the first to leave nor the first to leave by giving up. NBC is making a new show about this, with Howie Mandell - The Biggest Quitter.

OT: New Post by Frederick is Up. Thanks for all the encouragement. He is experimenting with slideshows. LUN

[Neo]

These new considerations ... like Yemen

[Ignatz]

--Thanks for all the encouragement. He is experimenting with slideshows.--

Still can't get over how well Master JiB writes and that is a beautiful view from your porch, Jack. Looks like good kayaking.

[Ignatz]

--I think he has to wait long enough to pull out so that he can be sure Afghanistan isn't a raging bloodbath before November 2012. That's his only consideration.--

Bingo. Not much to be said after that.

[narciso]

This isn't particularly new, but what's that line about history 'rhyming' if not repeating

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8558447/US-seeks-direct-talks-with-Talibans-Mullah-Omar.html

[Clarice]

While we're at it, Chris Hitchens has a fabulous new article on Pakistan. We can save $3 billion a year by cutting off funds to these hypocritical enemies. (First, let's help India destroy the Pak nuclear facilities or at least render them inoperable.)

[Clarice]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/07/osama-bin-laden-201107
Here's the link.

[glasater]

(First, let's help India destroy the Pak nuclear facilities or at least render them inoperable.)

Can we have India take care of Iran while they're at it?

[JackisBack!]

Iggy,

Full disclosure. He dictates, I prompt, he dctates, I prompt, we agree and then I type it out in language everyone can understand. He picks the photos, captions and posts those - thus the slideshow and his experiment.

He and I are sitting in a laundromat doing the clothes. Been a while since I did the laundry this way.

[narciso]

Mind you most of this is the result of one reactor, Kahuta, what does seven or eight
lead up to

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4078778,00.html

[Ignatz]

--Full disclosure.--

Well JiB, I figured he had a little assistance, but it's easy to tell that it's his vision of things we're reading.

[Clarice]

Florida voters--sign this West petition:

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=d5bfnocab&v=001EXWmPNxFGZvuUr0RFLXsmNi95TzlSCqoP7CnLy9P4i-L6rRZ6lIt31Drd7eoox5Gx4jHZVJfrSxzZvHVCPNHOplltmnrJ7VahUPbHBycpI3jN7QC_8ufYiCuKw5kIamf-VkDXhmBMM6u5I8W3chz8g%3D%3D

[daddy]

Good Morning,

Lou Dobb's on FOX just went hard after Obama on roadblocking Energy, and he called the EPA the equivalent of some apparatchik outfit of the Soviet Union.

Yay Lou. Give that man a bigger microphone.

[JackisBack!]

narciso,

I still think there is a lot of bluffing going on. It takes more than enriched uranium to make even the simplest of bombs, like the trigger. I can't see them going through all this trouble, effort and investment for a "dirty" bomb.

Then if it was this close, Israel would have turned Tehran into molten glass by now.

[narciso]

We are approaching a point of no return, JiB,
the 2007 NIE, the ignored Mousavian missive,
all play into this, as a former SAC pilot, you know the terms betters than I.

[anduril]

I see that Sarah Palin is moving toward the "declare victory and bring 'em home" approach, too. And speaking of Sarah Palin...

Mark Shea has some excellent comments:

Palin Throws Racket, Accidently Gets Ball over Net

Proclaimed a genius at tennis by adoring fans.

I have no doubt at all that Palin was *totally* well-read in the minutiae of American Revolution lore and absolutely had this obscure 1798 letter in mind when she was babbling her syntactic linguini last week. This isn't any kind of after-the-fact attempt to patch up an illiterate gaffe or anything. I look forward to her teaming up with Newt Gingrich to deliver her erudite lectures on American history.

The great groove she's got going is that she can literally do no wrong with her adorers. If she bails on her responsibility as governor to chase after riches and celebrity, it's because the media was too mean. If she runs for President, it's because she has the courage to Face the Heat (though "facing the heat" means "only allowing her image to be channeled through propaganda organs" rather like Obama). If she says something stupid, it's because she's a Woman of the People who isn't beholden to those Pointy-Headed Intellectuals and their Book Learnin' because she has the pulse of Real America. If she's accidently kinda sorta right by dumb luck, then that's because she's actually the True Scholar of American History and the pointy heads don't know anything about real American History. Wondrous.

[anduril]

Naturally, Shea was called on this by Palin fans, so he added a couple of explanatory comments:

I don't think she's a moron. I think she (and most of her fanbase) are postmodern narcissist who don't know how to cope with things when they discover that reality does not conform to their desires. So instead of saying, "Yeah, that was a goof" and moving on, she digs in and insists that her babbling was, in fact, sound historical analysis and her legions of apologist go out in search of some way to make throwing her racket at the ball a work of informed political genius. It's the adolescent Pee Wee Herman "I meant to say that!" thing that bugs me. I don't think it is a sign of contempt or hatred to note that this is a marker of intellectual immaturity. As to John Edwards, I agree completely that the man is repulsive. However, since the creep is not taken seriously as a possible Presidential contender, while Palin is (at least by her cult) I think it worth noting that the absurd attempt to make her babbling into serious historical commentary does not bode well.

She's a person of average intelligence who doesn't know history and "got lucky" only in the sense that if you squint one eye and pretend that her babble was purposeful, then you could pretend that she actually knew about this obscure footnote to history and was trying to reference it. But, of course, she didn't and wasn't. Don't kid yourself. She blathered and then her fans went into overdrive looking for a fig leaf. End of story. That this stupid incident is still a story on Monday morning only demonstrates that his cultists are as silly as the press that can't quit her. It's excellent Theatre of Narcissism. But as evidence that she is a serious person qualified for high office? Are you kidding me?

[narciso]

So you have been paying some attention to her hiring of Schweitzer, over Schueneman and Beigin, then again you probably think the colonists were wrong to rebel in the first place, certainly to establish settlements in
the areas west of the 13 colonies,

[anduril]

A complicated issue. But moot at this point in history, unlike the ME.

[Army of Davids]

"Reckless Endangerment" at Fannie and Freddie?

At least Barney's boyfriend has a good job.

[JackisBack!]

narciso,

Not pilot but radar navigator or in pre-Lemay terms, Bomberdier.

What I fail to understand is that the arabs have most to fear since they have mo mutual deterren. Yet, they are relying on who? The Israelis? Us? The fate of Allah?

I guess the Iranians will unveil this along with the Mahdi, right.

[Tom Maguire]

--I think he has to wait long enough to pull out so that he can be sure Afghanistan isn't a raging bloodbath before November 2012. That's his only consideration.--

Excellent point. I would add that his only other consideration is heading off a primary challenge from the embittered left. Since Gitmo will still be open, withdrawing eough troops to placate the "Against All Wars" base will be important.

That said, a token withdrawal this summer accompanied by promises ought to do the trick with that crowd, whose powers of rationalization are vast.

[anduril]

I don't think Obama can fine tune a withdrawal enough to have that kind of control over events.

Plus, he's got this to worry about, too: The scary truth behind the new jobs numbers

Despite the fact that the economy is clearly slowing, the department this year added 206,000 phony jobs to May; last year's guess was "just" 192,000. And those 192,000 jobs had to eventually be taken out of the annual calculation. So, bottom line: The economy is in bad shape even before talk of possible budget cuts and debt ceilings disrupt it even more.

Congress and the president long ago abdicated their role in helping the economy.

The federal budget deficits, created over the decades, that elected officials of both parties have neutered the government's ability to spend its way out of this recession.

And by keeping interest rates so low for so long the Fed has not only given up most of its power, but it has also stoked inflation.

Which leaves us with the supposed magic elixir that the Fed is selling like some carnival barker: quantitative easing, the printing of extra electronic currency that can float around the financial system.

The Fed has already gone through batches 1 and 2 of this elixir, and it'll only be a matter of days before Wall Street will be crying for another dose.

Quantitative Easing 1 & 2 didn't do much for the economy, as you can see from the unsatisfactory number of jobs created over the past two years. That's especially clear if you look at the job gains after Labor revises them in the months ahead.

But the stock market sure loved the QEs. If this extra money can't find a place in the real economy that creates jobs and expands companies, then it is more than welcome on Wall Street, where speculation leads to bubbles and wealth for the lucky few.

Obama sure inherited a mess, and it will only be worse for anyone who inherits this. Whoever it is better be ready, because there won't be a honeymoon.

[anduril]

So what would Tim Pawlenty do if he were elected with a mandate to save the economy? Hugh Hewitt links to A Tim Pawlenty plan for recovery.

[narciso]

Some silliness from a usual suspects:

http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/06/the-coming-afghan-drawdown/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fswampland+(TIME%3A+Swampland)