Afghanistan Troop Level

General McChrystal is mistaken. Another troop surge is not going to work. In Iran the segregation process finished and the territory related killings dropped. On the other hand, Iran is almost a homogeneous culture compared to the tribes of Afghanistan. The chieftains outside of Karzai's heavily patrolled capitol Kabul are in no hurry to scede their power to Karzai or anyone else. Pashtuns are not Uzbeks and Uzbeks are not Pashtuns. Magically merging these two together by the addition of thousands more troops on their lands will serve to do little more than find new enemies. There is another way.

The USA needs enough troops in Afghanistan to A. Protect themselves. B. Support what should amount to a broad spectrum offensive against the known leaders of al qaeda wherever they hide, by troop force or air, or drone, or any other effective measures including the interdiction of arms going to al qaeda members or followers, including Taliban allied with al qaeda.

American and allied forces should offer some level of protection to an elected Afghani government, but we do not want to "Own" Afghanistan, or Kabul. Our troops need to be in the business of force protection and force projection. I have no doubt US and allied forces could either hunt down or shut down any number of terrorist cells.

Total troop level? Probably not less than 40,000 all together. An all out effort on troop protection should keep casualties very low. And it will not be cheap, but a lot less than adding thousands more troops. The task of providing the nation builders and then protecting those nation builders cannot fall on our hands alone. Afghanistan will eventually sort itself out. Until then, grateful Kabul governments will gladly allow our forces to operate in their land. If the day ever comes Afghanistan can protect itself and is not a home for terrorists, we can leave.

Obama's Nobel-GOP Reaction

The GOP core is now down to the mouthy few who follow Boss Limbaugh, despise minorities, and deny what is evident to the entire rest of the world. The 1950's are over and are never coming back. Might no longer makes right. White is not an automatic pass. Christianity is no better than any other religion. Go on, cling to God, guns and gays. Name or re-name something else for Reagan. It won't make any difference. The tide is here and is irreversible. Obama's sudden Nobel is just one more wave.

Who Is Calling For War on Iran and Why?

On the way in this morning a vastly disturbing commercial came over the sports radio channel from an organization calling itself the American Jewish something-something. The subject was Iran and what followed was an astounding pack of lies and misinformation. The lead-off lie was that, "Iran now has enough uranium to make a bomb". Bull crap. Complete bull crap. If every ounce of uranium Iran has was lumped together Iran would be the nuclear weapon equivalent of Niger. Less so, actually. Iran holds not one ounce of weapon grade material. Natanz is under regular IAEA inspection and Qom will almost certainly soon be as well. What followed that war rousing rhetoric was a string of assorted half-truths and lies by omission.

This, I suspect , fits a pattern, led by Netanyahu and the NeoCons, to prevent both the two state solution and prevent Palestinian citizenship in Israel (the only two remaining choices besides continued oppression) by fomenting war with Iran.