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One justification for continuing (and possibly escalating) our military/non-military commitment in Afghanistan centers around the potential for al-Qaeda to establish safe havens in that country from which to coordinate attacks on US targets. This al-Qaeda-based rationale rests on several assumptions that include, but perhaps are not limited to: 1. If we withdraw or significantly reduce our military presence, the Taliban will retake Afghanistan (presumably that means the Taliban will [...] The New York Times, to its credit, attempts to dispel some of the stubborn misinformation concerning the interchangeability (or lack thereof) of the Afghan Taliban faction and Pakistani Taliban faction. Contrary to popular and pervasive fictions, these two groups are quite distinct in terms of strategy and objectives. As it devises a New Afghanistan policy, the Obama administration [...] In the debate over the future of US policy in Afghanistan, it is taken as a given by most proponents of prolonging the occupation that our presence is benefiting the Afghan people. According to this view, we are a bulwark against Taliban aggression – a prophylactic for a liberal-minded, yet vulnerable, contingent of Afghan civilians. In fact, [...] At long last, the Obama administration has provided a draft of its objectives with respect to the ongoing military occupation of Afghanistan, as well as a series of metrics for gauging the success in terms of meeting those aims. Unfortunately, the enunciated objectives are themselves typical of the muddled and contradictory goals, tactics and strategies associated with a mission that [...] James Joyner passes along some rather unremarkable news about India’s views on the ongoing US occupation of Afghanistan - unremarkable news given the regional dynamic that pits India (in support of the Karzai government) against Pakistan (who had strongly backed the Taliban as its proxy/ally in Afghanistan): India’s new ambassador to the United States, Meera Shankar, told the Atlantic Council [...] My project to review Juan Cole’s Engaging the Muslim World chapter by chapter is dragging on longer than I thought it would, but I hate leaving things unfinished, and so I soldier on. The fifth chapter, “Pakistan and Afghanistan: Beyond the Taliban,” is the one most outside of my expertise, for while I did [...] Despite President Bush’s post-9/11, manichean-tinged attempt to categorize other nations as either “with us or against us” with respect to those terrorist groups that the US government considers problematic, and despite an understandable impulse on the part of the US government to put US interests ahead of those of other states (a tendency that spans administrations from both [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is now managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. 
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