Three prominent Republican lawmakers on Sunday questioned whether Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, can effectively lead the party after he called the conflict in Afghanistan a misguided “war of Obama’s choosing.”

via Senior Republicans Question Steele’s Ability to Lead – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

Former Democratic party chair Ed Rendell called Steele “the gift that keeps on giving” for all his past misstatement. It’s ironic that for all the repeated gaffes by Steele, it’s his truthful comment about the the war being unwinable that starts howling on the right for his resignation.

Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.

In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership.

via Pakistan Is Said to Pursue an Afghan Foothold – NYTimes.com.

I say give it to them. It makes far more sense for them to be leading in the region than it does for us.

Marc Ambinder has some doubts about the motives of what looks like a coordinated effort to get the world to pay attention to 20 year old information about mineral wealth in Afghanistan. The NY Times today reports:

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

So the real question here is who’s attention are they trying to get? Wavering NATO allies? China? Russia seems obvious, but I think they found out all they need to know about Afghanistan during their ill fated invasion in the 80s. I don’t think it was really directed at the American public, we already got a close look at a war that supposed to pay for itself. It didn’t work out so well from a fiscal standpoint (or nearly any other) did it?

Then there’s this little gem in the NYT story:  “The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.” By all means, send the US Minerals Management Service to Afghanistan. Their work with the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico has worked out sooooo well.

Conventional Wisdom Watch | Mother Jones.

Obama has to change the policy in Pakistan, either flat out declare war on Pakistan or give up on Afghanistan. This half-assed shit isn’t cutting it. We ARE turning more and more of the Muslim world against us. It only gets worse from there.  Let’s see what was the last foreign power to subdue and remain in control in Afghanistan? Oh right, NO ONE!

Follow Omar Khadr From an Al Qaeda Childhood to a Gitmo Cell : Rolling Stone
There is no scientific evidence that such coercion is better than any other kind of interrogation; it is probably worse. SERE techniques were not designed to be used in the real world; they were designed to test the psychic endurance of Air Force pilots. When the FBI sent some of its best counterterrorism agents to Guantanamo soon after the camps opened, the agents chose to use what is known as rapport-based interrogation, which apparently worked. The FBI agents found the coercive tactics used by military intelligence both disgusting and stupid: The abusive treatment instantly destabilized detainees, making the information they provided unreliable as intelligence and useless in court.

I find the comments to the article to be sad. Many seem to believe that a 15 year old, fighting for a national army, deserves torture. It says much about our savagery and lack of humanity has a nation.

I heard that Prince Harry has been secretly serving with the British Army in Afghanistan since December, this is until he was outed by Matt Drudge. Military officials will now have to pull Harry out of his unit because he’s such a high profile target that he endangers other members of his unit.

Two things strike me about this story. First Matt Drudge is an asshole for breaking this story despite the obvious fact that it place lives in danger. Maybe that should just be a base assumption that just goes without saying. Secondly, I applaud the tradition of military service in the royal family and I wish the elite families in our country would feel the same obligation to serve in the military. If you want to be in a position to be commander-in-chief and order people to die in battle, you should have a very, very good idea of what that means on a real personal level.

Rice Says U.S. Will Review Aid To Pakistan – washingtonpost.com
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that the United States would review its $150 million-a-month assistance program to Pakistan in response to the declaration of emergency rule by the president, Gen. Pervez Mushar.

Pakistan has long been a safe harbor for terrorists in the area along the nearly non-existent border with Afghanistan. It’s intelligence service and military are rife with al-Qaeda  sympathizers. It’s not terribly stable and has nukes. More attention should have been paid to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Instead we’re bogged down in Iraq. Now both seem to be deteriorating.

Crooks and Liars
This is the tragic irony of our foreign policy over the past six years. Instead of permanently destroying al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan — where they are currently regrouping and emerging even stronger — we decided to invade a country that did not attack us nor have the capability to attack us, thereby creating a failed state in which the new terrorists we’ve created can station themselves. Brilliant!

Pre-War Intelligence Report on Iraq Released – washingtonpost.com

The U.S. intelligence community accurately predicted months before the Iraq war that al-Qaeda would link up with elements from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime and militant Islamists to conduct terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in that country, according to a report released today by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Two national intelligence assessments sent to the White House and other senior Bush administration policymakers in January 2003 also predicted that al-Qaeda “would try to take advantage of U.S. attention on postwar Iraq to re-establish its presence in Afghanistan,” according to the Senate report.

It would seem that the President was and is still incapable of listening to opinions that differ from his. The nation is no safer. Billions of dollars are gone. 3400+ American soldiers and tens of thousands Iraqis are dead in a perdictable disaster. 605 days until Dubya retires back to Texas where he can pretend to be a cowboy full time.

The Democrats confused the American public’s unhappiness with the way the war was being fought with a desire for surrender and retreat. To be fair this was made easier by the high decibel shrieking from their lunatic fringe.

Over the months since the election they have forced to deal with the hard cold reality of the fact that the American people actually want to win.

It will be fun to watch the heads exploding on the left as the truth sinks in.

Winning would be nice, but can you define what “win” means? Hasn’t Gen. Patreus already stated that there’s no military solution to the mess in Iraq?

It would be nice to put the genie back in the bottle and turn the clock back and do what Gen. Shinseki suggested and use sufficient forces to ensure that there wouldn’t be Al Qaeda infiltration, sectarian violence and general lawlessness. But our beloved decider-in-chief overruled the Army Chief of Staff and tried to do it on the cheap. The violence unleased by that high level stupidty is what got us where we are today.

Of course the public is unhappy. The Bush admin. failed miserably in Iraq. Not the military, the Bush admin. The military continues to rip a new one into any forces that attempt to stand and fight. It’s what they do best. But those opportunities are few and far between. It’s counter-insurrgency occupation at this point, never a strength for large conventional forces. I doubt the American public has the stomach to do what’s needed in terms of time, spilled blood and spent treasure. The Bush admin. misunderstood the psyche of the American public, they didn’t stay fearful enough, were never asked to make any real sacrafice and aren’t sufficiently blood thristy.

Plus this debacle in Iraq hasn’t been in our national intersts. We’re pinned down and unable to present a credible threat to forestall larger national security threats in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.

You may express glee at the inablity of democrats to muster a veto proof majority at this moment, but infantile political posturing isn’t going to make us safer, secure the homeland or prevent larger threats looming on the horizon. And this will come up in congress again. The closer we get to election day the less support his lame duckness will muster in congress.

Was Jessica Lynch the heroic lil’ Rambo girl from Palestine, WV? She says her vehicle crashed knocking her unconscious and she never fired her weapon. Also it’s been reported that her rescue was delayed for a day so the Army could round up a camera crew to film the “rescue” from an unguarded civilian hospital.

Brother of Pat Tillman accuses military of deception Pat Tillman got

Did Pat Tillman die in a blaze of glory saving his comrades from enemy attack through sheer guts and determination while wounded? Reports and congressional testimony indicater that he was a victim of friendly fire, the truth was suppressed and some unknown person faked a Silver Star citation to create a hero and distract the public from the breaking Abu Gharib scandal.

If they lied about these things, what won’t they lie about?

This is conflicting. While I am sorry that there was a suicide bombing killing workers waiting to get into Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, I hope that at least something got through that dense noggin on the VP. I don’t really think he would recognize that there’s a problem in Afghanistan, but maybe a threat to his scaly hide would get his attention.

I don’t support Israeli actions in Lebanon. It’s not that I don’t believe that Israel shouldn’t defend itself. They have the right to self-defense and the leaders of the nation have a sworn duty to do so. What I find interesting is that the last invasion of Lebanon by Israel essentially created Hizbollah. They have wide support among sunnis in southern Lebanon becasue they provide hospitals, schools and mosques to the people. They are preceived locally as the only force to stand up against Israel. The democratically elected governemnt of Lebanon is weak. Israeli actions weaken it further.

I don’t think there’s any real possibility that Israeli military action will eliminate Hizbollah, short of a genocidial campaign against sunnis in the region. Their actions will strengthen support for Hizbollah on the arab street and increase Nasrallah’s stature as the one willing to stand up against Israel. I heard someone say the other day that Israel has no place to retreat to, that they can’t afford to lose a war. They may find the limitations of military action as an instrument of govenment, similar to what’s been happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the process Israel displays the weakness they seem desparate to avoid. In short, this is not going to help Israel.

I would maintain that the threat of Islamic fundamentalism posed by Al Qaeda comes no where near that level. The threat of a nuclear Iran on the other hand gives me real pause. Unfortunately we are already heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and any type of serious contemplation of military action in Iran must be giving Pentagon planners nightmares right about now. They have economic weapons and now a looming nuclear threat that makes Saddam and Al Qaeda look like complete amateurs, and we’re not in a position to do anything about short of seizing Iranian oil infrastructure and hoping nothing gets broken of sabotaged in the process. The “geniuses” running this conflict have thoroughly painted this country into a corner. A real threat has emerged and we’re still fighting the bogeyman of Al Qaeda.

Update: Bush steals Kerry’s plan for dealing with Iran

Now the President is in essence adopting the same approach he pooh-poohed as appeasement during the campaign as suggested by Kerry. It’s almost verbatim from the Kerry campaign. I guess he was against it before he was for it. I’m glad we have such resolute leadership.

We were supposed to be the white hats, the good guys, weren’t we? Don’t we have a higher standard than butt pyramids, sexual abuse and humiliation?

But it rises far above that level. You might also consider that there have been a spate of suspicous deaths of detainees as well, mostly beaten to death.

Those 33 were just the ones the military will admit to. You can be damned sure there are more that never made it up the chain of command.

Some have pointed out that it’s some form of payback or retribution for hostage executions. Which would you prefer, beheading with a dull sword or to be beaten to death? Seems like pretty much a toss up there, doesn’t it?

The argument has also been made that awful things just happen during war. Yes that’s the nature of war and why we should avoid war and not go rushing in with a Yee-haw and a “bring ‘em on”. In my mind, that’s not the basis for a sound long-term foreign policy in the middle east. It’s these types crimes that fuel the insurgency and erodes support on the ground for American forces in Iraq. Rumsfeld should have ordered Abu Ghraib demolished as soon as the first allegations surfaced 2 years ago. It would have show the Iraqi people that we are not like Saddam, and the past has been swept away.

At any rate it’s Bush, Rumsfeld and Gonzalez who should be held accountable, not some piddling colonel. I might buy that if abuse were limited to this one site, but there’s evidence of the same shameful behavior in Afghanastan and Gitmo. It’s the command environment from the top that encouraged this behavior, not some middle level manager. The buck stops where?