Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Fear not friends, I have been closely watching the news coming from Marjah and Afghanistan in general, although I have not had the time to craft a detailed update. In the meantime, here are a few stories worthy of your attention.

  • In today's NYT, Josh Foust has an op-ed about Marjah and the short-sightedness of the U.S. approach to governance. It's possibly the best piece I've seen explaining the importance of governance and why the U.S. isn't making the right choices.
  • Gulliver at Ink Spots has a post in a similar vein, wondering why the biggest priority for training the ANSF is marksmanship.  Shouldn't it be more focused on rule of law and human rights? 
  • Via Tom Ricks, a great interview with Ahmed Rashid in which he stresses that a complete defeat of the Taliban is impossible, and that the prudent course is to begin negotiations now to ensure a stable situation after the coalition withdrawal.
  • Finally, I found this Alissa Rubin article in the NYT fascinating.  The fact that the government in Kabul sent a Vice President that doesn't speak Pashtun is astounding, and, I think, indicative of the token level of commitment we can expect from the Karzai regime moving forward.

1 comments:

homelesseus said...

Fouist: excellent analysis. Pay the farmers for three years as much as they get for opium. Transition to wheat (whatever)
Gulliver: 1 is possible, 2-4 is a pipe-dream.
Ricks: Has been obvious from day one. Get on with it.
Rubin: Karzai plays us (wouldn't you in his situation) we who are almost wholly ignorant of the reality in Afghanistan, in spite of the many experts we have on the country. You can't do what you don't want to do. We gave money to American and Western firms, money that could have purchased the entire country.

Thanks for the links.
.

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