I didn't think much of Andrew Bacevich's piece. I haven't thought much of most of what he's written about Afghanistan, because, well, it isn't about Afghanistan. Instead, it's about empire and Washington, and Iraq, and Vietnam. And this one was particularly Manichaean, dividing everyone into pro-war and anti-war, hawks and doves. And the fact that the first line dismissed people like me as un-"Serious", a beltway favorite that somehow is okay when the argument is one that comes to a conclusion we agree with, right?

I went through all 26 pages of comments. That means I read or was referenced to Alan Grayson's comments about six times. I like Alan Grayson. I found this particular set of comments to be ignorant to the point of demeaning to South Asia(Afghanistan is neither in the Middle East, nor in Central Asia). I'm not sure whether he knows what the word Afghanistan means, but it is Persian for Land of the Pashtuns, just like Pakistan means Land of the Pure, and Hindustan means Land of the people beyond the Indus, and Tajikistan means land of the people who are not Turkmen.

rrheard goes to Powell's! Maybe in addition to Descent Into Chaos, he should pick up Ghost War by Steve Coll. Then there will be some continuity from 1979 through 2008, since Ahmed Rashid's book basically starts on the day that Steve Coll's book leaves off.

I personally don't know what to feel about General McChrystal's report, although I did read it. One part is correct: The largest single reason for the air attacks that kill the civilians in Afghanistan is too-small groups of soldiers get pinned down and call them in to save themselves. That's why his solution is to add more soldiers. But those who quote General Petraeus on numbers needed (e.g. Alex Rossmiller citing 568,000) or could have just as easily quoted General Eric Shinseki and come up with 600,000, make me wonder how the number comes out to 40,000. But facts are facts, and if you want the military to suggest a solution it will suggest a military solution. So the way to decrease civilian casualties is therefore to make it less likely to call in air strikes. But then General McChrystal, after pulling the number out of a hat (at least it seemed to me), goes on to talk about winning, which I'm not sure I understand, and so forth, and loses me.

Alex Rossmiller loses me for the simple reason that he doesn't talk about Pakistan. Anyone who doesn't talk about Pakistan and wants to talk about the Taliban isn't being honest or isn't informed. But then Alan Gilbert talks all about Pakistan, but, not having heard, apparently of either Lashkar-e-Taiba or the Articles of Accession, loses me just about right away, too. In general, if you want to hold my interest (and it isn't clear you care), admit there are more than two sides in this debate, and talk about the regional players, and be forewarned that acting like Afghanistan is a metonymy for Iraq or for Vietnam will turn me right off, because it isn't.

I'm not sure from Glenn's update blurb which parts of Alex Rossmiller he does and doesn't agree with, but Mr. Rossmiller's estimate of places where the Taliban have shadow government is at odds with Glenn's statement from his last Afghanistan piece that the Taliban control 80% of the country, which is of course at odds with the entire premise that the United States is occupying Afghanistan (hint: the U.S. did/does occupy Iraq). But facts are in short supply on Afghanistan and plentiful about Iraq after 7 years of Bush administration neglect in the former, and the American press' obsession with all things Middle East.

I liked the exchange between teresa and zepgirl and to some extent Silenced about the rest of the social fabric, and especially about non-military solutions. Goes well with bystander's mention (the only such mention in 26 pages) of the Bonn Agreement, that little formal whatever that actually defines the mission of ISAF in Afghanistan. Because ya know, it's so weird having "experts" like Alex Rossmiller, and to some extent John Nagl (what a creep), pretend that nation building is a recent morph of mission there.

I have a question, though. Without a lot of other things added, and probably some of them being some kind of security, which might mean force, how does the plan work? The ADB and other organizations (Grameen Bank, etc.) work well to pull societies up, but have largely been successful in places other than war zones. Richard Holbrooke has started working on getting a Grange-like program going in parts of Afghanistan, I don't know how well it's working (and I heard some disturbing news yesterday to the effect that it may have already been sidetracked by the unimaginative).

In this connection, I have a complaint about the PBS video, the narrator made it sound as if the opium growing and the American irrigation project were contemporaneous. The dam was built in the 1960's, the Pakistani ISI/Military introduced widespread opium growing in Afghanistan in the 1980's to help pay for the mujaheddin in advance of Charlie Wilson and company. In fact, if the irrigation ditches and system were fixed, it would be easier to grow the cash crops and staples that were planted there before the Taliban broke them in the 1990's.

I second teresa that there needs to be a whole lot less military to the solution, and second bystander that the mercenaries have got to go. One indication as to how dangerous these military corporations are is that al Qaeda, for all intents and purposes, is like a Pakistani version of Blackwater that got out of hand: Run by a rich religious nutcase, etc.

I would add, though that the very first part of any solution is to end the AUMF and it's expression, Operation Enduring Freedom. teresa is right. The time for bin Laden "dead or alive" is over.