Is the Taliban worth fighting?

Most Americans, and indeed most American policy-makers, take for granted that preventing the Taliban from gaining control of Af-Pak is essential for American security. Not so says John Mueller in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. The Taliban itself have limited interests outside their own region and are unlikely to provide a base for Al Qaeda in the near future given what happened last time. Mueller argues that preventing the Taliban from reestablishing control in Afghanistan may not actually be worth the fight, and that it actually isn't a requirement for American security.

While he's probably right about the Taliban not being particularly interested in external conflict the situation in Pakistan is such that we can't simply ignore Afghanistan. Policy-wise the US must deal with both of them so to argue that the US should get out of Afghanistan is ultimately not particularly useful unless one can figure out how to fix Pakistan.

Ali Soufan in the NYT

Must read piece by one of the FBI's finest young agents who was involved in the early interrogations of Abu Zubaydah in late summer 2002. He's come forward for the first time to reveal that he, working with another FBI agent were able to gain valuable, actionable intelligence (including intelligence later claimed to have been gained via waterboarding) using traditional interrogation techniques. It's yet one more example of why the torture regime authorized the last administration is not only illegal and immoral, but also ineffective.

Defeating Pirates

This is a bit old but Fred Kaplan at Slate has a good article on how the world should take aim at the pirates operating with apparent impunity off the Somalia coast. Some of it is wishful thinking, but the ideas a certainly good ones.

In other news, on Sunday an Italian cruise ship fended off a pirate attack with handguns and firehoses!

The godfather of blogging

I'm sure most people have seen it by now, but if not Johann Hari's profile of Andrew Sullivan is a fascinating look at one of the most influential writers, and likely the most influential blogger, in America. Hari charts Sullivan's life from his youth as a lonely Thatcher supporter in Northern England, through to his days at Harvard, TNR and his great success as one of the founders of blogging. Hari is charitable some respects to Sullivan's point of view, but there is no doubt that the man set the stage for the proliferation of blogs as real journalism and has really been at the center of the blogosphere from the start.

Interview with Tom Ricks

Michael Totten, back stateside, has a great interview with Thomas Ricks covering his new book, his thoughts on the origins of the surge and where the situation in Iraq is going to go from here. It's well worth reading, though it is rather depressing to hear just how negative Ricks' view of Iraq's future is. He envisions Iraq becoming worse than Lebanon (which would be his ideal) and sees instead a country closely aligned with Iran, lead by a strongman in the vein of Saddam and before that all happens, a bloody civil war. So not a great prognostication.

The New Yorker

Two classic articles from recent editions of the New Yorker. First is Anthony Gottleib's wonderful history of the Wittgenstein family. It's a classic description of a family plagued by neurosis, depression and suicide which overshadowed the brilliance of many of its members.

The second is David Sedaris at his best, describing his interactions in the bar cars of the world's railways. Written in the conversational but darkly humorous style he has mastered, it is well worth the read. One of the things I miss most not being in the US is the New Yorker. While I subscribe fully to the theory that print journalism is on the decline, I think certain niche publications will awlays retain an audience. For me, while I read voraciously online from short blog posts to long feature articles, I'll go out of my way to get my hands on a hard copy of the New Yorker. There really is nothing like it.

America politics ignores Rawls

The title of this post is a statement I think few would argue with. Despite ruminations by commentators, political philosophy students and, yes, bloggers (including yours truly) the great political philosophers have little effect on the current political climate. Thus, Rawls and Oakeshott haven't won Democrats and Republicans many seats and are unlikely to do so anytime in the near future. For a good rundown on why this is the case check on this post by Neil Sinhababu on how the worth of political philosophy has declined over the past few decades.

Dangers of the Ivory Tower

I have long thought that one of the benefits of the American university system over the English version is the interaction between professors, think tanks and public service. It is by no means unusual for an GWU social sciences professor to have served in government, often as an executive branch adviser of some sort, then to have spent time formulating and adivising on policy from the outside be it in a think tank or as a analytical journalist before starting a professorial career. This rotation, and it need not be in that order, helps keep academia in contact with the 'real' world, helps think tanks and other institutions produce innovative ideas and lends an introspective and academic air to governance that often is hidden by political agendas. Thus, this article by Joseph Nye in the WaPo presents worrying findings that fewer and fewer academics immerse themselves in public life but instead remain focused solely on their studies with little concern for their relevance to the outside world. If this trend continues the US could well end up like the UK where an Oxford don and a civil servant view dismiss each other's work as irrelevant to their own. Such a situation would damage both academic research and the public good.

Quote of the day

"The truth is that the French have never really got over being dumped at the altar of the “special relationship.” It should have been them. It was after all, the French who gave you the Statue of Liberty and the keys to the Bastille and who think Jerry Lewis is funny. What did the English ever give you? Muffins and a burnt White House." A. A. Gill, NYT

Government debt: a primer

Peter Orzag has a post from some days ago explaining government debt, the various forms it takes, and which number is the most meaningful in terms of what the government actually owes. The blog overall is very good and the the content of this post is something everyone who comments on budgetary affairs should understand---though somehow I doubt that's the case.

Font game

Those of you who know of my soft spot for design will understand why I'm posting this. Otherwise, ignore it. This fantastically difficult game has sent me searching through Word in an attempt to remember which fonts are what!

US Iraq Commander Joins Facebook

General Ray Odierno has joined facebook! Now all the counterinsurgency groupies can follow him online as he attempts to maintain the ever-more fragile Iraqi peace, attempts to keep the political reconciliation process from falling apart completely and oversees the beginnings of American troop withdrawals. Maybe we should start some '1 Million Strong for Ray' groups...

Are Strunk and White overrated?

It's been fifty years since the first edition of Stunk and White's Elements of Style was first published and since then millions of high school and college students have pored through it, searching for the answer to their split infinitives and passive voice. However, is it overrated and even unhelpful to the degree that it's positively bad for one's grammar? The head of Linguistics at Edinburgh University thinks so and he has written a screed against the grammar guide that is well worth the read.

The Federal Budget

Fantastic graphic (I'd love to get the hard copy) of how the federal budget is divided up between government agencies. Especially in light of the the April 15 protests, it's good to see where the money actually goes. People declaiming about high taxes should first be required to identify which bit of this chart they'd chop off.

The next Routemaster

One of Boris Johnson's campaign pledges was to bring the routemaster bus back to the streets of London. After he won, the mayors office held a design competition and there should be a new routemaster traveling the streets of London in the coming years based on the concepts articulated by the competition's winner. Check out this article on the new bus, as well as other modern bus designs. Now if only more US cities would begin to take mass urban transport a bit more seriously.

Will Wilkinson outs himself

From the Cannabis Closet that is. Following Andrew Sullivan's series documenting the regular Americans who enjoy smoking marijuana comes Wilkinson's op-ed calling for sane thought on the issue and criticizing Obama's flippant response to the legalization question last week. While there is little doubt that marijuana should be legalized, the political battles that would be needed to do so could soak up all Obama's remaining political capital--capital he needs in order to sheperd the country out of economic collapse. That said, the issue deserves serious debate and it is a depressing indicator of the prohibitionist streak that runs through this country that those who would address legalization are laughed off and disregarded.

Update: Joe Klein also has an article on legalization in Time from last week and while he doesn't confess to enjoying the odd smoke himself, he argues that the myriad of good legalization would bring about far outweighs the arguments against, most of which are easy to counter anyway.

Exum on Maddow

Andrew Exum was on Rachel Maddow this past week talking about his TNR column on terrorist safe havens. Video is below and is well worth watching. As I've discussed previously, Exum's concerns are valid and need to be considered, but at the same time the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands that the US address the problem of terrorist safe havens. Thus, while the precedent such haven-denying action could set is problematic, I'm not sure we have a choice given the situation on the ground in Central Asia.

On a related note, Exum has linked to Mike Innes' critigue of the TNR column. Innes argues that Exum overstates the ability and influence of the internet and is too general when discussing physical havens. He sees the internet as a messaging vehicle--useful but only if you have the set up to utilize it correctly. Innes sees the larger problem as one of dispersed transnational terror networks which utilize disparate small safe havens in multiple areas where their belief strucuture is supported. Here's the whole thing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Election Nostalgia

Missing the thrills of the 2008 election cycle? Want to rehash those days when we all obsessed over Apalachia, Alaska and the alcohol preferences of large swathes of the country? If so, then this slideshow from The Electoral Map blog is just the thing for you.

h/t Ezra Klein

Procrastination Vindicated

At least in moderate amounts. Via Freakonomics comes an Australian report that suggests those who spend up to 20 percent of their time browsing the internet are actually more productive than other workers who focus exclusively on their work. University students around the world will rejoice at these findings, though keeping ones procrastination tendencies to 20 percent of ones time may be a challenge for some. I know I'll find it difficult!

A fragile peace begins to crack

CAP's Brian Katulis has a good article on their website outlining the cracks that are beginning to appear in the fragile peace currently experienced in Iraq. Confrontations between the Sunni 'Awakenings' and the official Iraqi security forces (predominantly Shia) will likely continue and even escalate as more and more of the Sunni forces feel that the government is not doing enough to include them in political activities nor hiring enough of their soldiers for the official army. Katulis outlines the problems and argues that although many in the US, particularly on the right, will call of Obama to slow any plans for troop withdrawal, the President must stick with the plan as it currently exists and begin to pull out American soldiers. He makes the accurate point that Iraqis will never be able to acheive full political reconciliation while the US military keeps the opposing sides at arms length from one another. However, his article fails to address the problem of Iraq descending into chaos as various groups attempt to consolidate power. There are few satisfactory answers to that question from either side but it is one that must be addressed as Iraqi elections, and US withdrawals, move inexorably closer.

Holbrooke goes to Af-Pak

Interesting if slightly one-sided look at Richard Holbrooke and what his diplomatic role in the Af-Pak situation will entail. He has earned a fantastic reputation for his skill at diplomacy and despite the worries of some (including the author) that he is over confident in America's ability to do good in the region, he is almost certainly the right man for the job. He seems to have learnt the lessons of Vietnam and imperial overstretch but remains optimistic in his and America's ability to bring at least a semblance of security and stability to the region.

Jim Webb's courage

Senator Webb's new crusade to reform the American criminal justice system has earned him plaudits from both sides of the aisle as he attempts the thankless and politically risky confrontation with the 'tough on crime' mentality that has held American political views hostage on this issue for decades. Glenn Greenwald has a great run down on the topic and how, with no apparent motive apart from a sense of justice, the Senator from Virginia has decided to address what has become an American tragedy. To quote Webb's floor speech, "We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world." It is high time this problem was addressed and all credit to Senator Web for taking up the cause.

Aaron Sorkin as Shakespeare? or better?

Interesting piece articulating how the human mind is limited in its ability to inferring the mental states of others. Shakespeare had incredible abilities in this regard, as exemplified by the complexities in plays such as Othello. However, Sorkin seems to go even farther into with his complex plots, reaching even higher in terms of orders of understanding than even the great playwright. So while even the greatest West Wing aficionado would be unlikely to rate the screenwriter higher than Shakespeare, he does seem to have surpassed the Bard in terms of intricacy and complexity.

Safe Havens: Physical vs Online

Andrew Exum, perhaps better known as Abu Muqawama has an op-ed in The New Republic. It's must read stuff outlining the importance of Al Qaeda's online forums as tools for recruitment--tools just as vital for their continued existence as physical camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, current US strategy is focused predominantly, (Exum suggests even obsessively) on rooting out the actual training areas and has thus far expended little effort in counteracting terrorist activity online. It's a thorny problem, one that traditional COIN tactics are not particularly well-equipped to handle. This is not to say that American efforts in Af-Pak are necessarily misguided, but simply that they should not be assumed as remedying the problem entirely. In addition, Exum questions the precedent that rooting out Al Qaeda in Pakistan may set. Does that mean the US will be obligated to follow Islamist extremists wherever they set up shop? If so, will the US be invading Somalia? Iran? Germany (where the 9/11 hijackers planned their attack) These are all questions needing much more discussion as future US policy continues to be formulated.

The profitability of skype

The question as to whether it will be possible to turn what are largely free internet programs into profitable companies is one that has vexed online entrepeneurs for some time. This article argues that of all the web 2.0 services out there, skype has the greatest chance at becoming a truly profitable enterprise. As opposed to Facebook and YouTube, Skype is profitable as a stand-alone business and had revenues of 500 million dollars in 2008. With each user it becomes ever more profitable, something that cannot be claimed of services such as MySpace et al and so Skype may well be eventually considered the new Amazon or the new Google.

Doug Feith and Pashtun Poetry

Who knew Doug Feith had a soft spot for traditional Pashtun tribal poetry? This fairly ridiculous column in the NYT suggests that the US needs to do more to counteract the Pakistani Taliban's reign of terror against Sufiism and traditional tribal culture. On the face of it, fair enough. But coming from Feith it's amazinly brazen given his role in the run-up to and mishandling of the Iraq war and more than slightly odd that he sees this as the most vital tactic the US needs to be engaging in.

Police in Af-Pak

Foreign Policy continues its string of interesting, insightful articles on the Af-Pak situation with this article from Robert Templer. He argues that policing has been overlooked and underdeveloped by coalition forces in Afghanistan while the Pakistani police are sorely lacking in training and equipment.

The problems plaguing the Afghai police are well documented. The police force has long been seen as less important than the Afghan army. That concentration on the military has paid dividends and though the size of the armed forces needs to be increased, it has managed to flex its muscle against the Taliban with decent results and it is also perhaps the most trusted institution in the country. However, the lack of focus on the Afghani polise has left it tiny, in disarray, and its leadership corrupt. Refocusing on the police force is vital to begin to provide the rule of law that America's new counterinsurgency strategy demands. That means cops on the beat and on the corner able to prevent crime as well as respond to it. In addition, the formation of a stable and competant poice force is the first step in reviving the institutions of law and order such as the courts and prison system.

Across the border in Pakistan the problem is just as difficult if not more so. Police are deprived of resources and the bulk of American aid for fighting terrorism goes to the army with very little ever trickling down to the police who are on the front line in both the tribal regions and, increasingly, in supposedly safe cities like Lahore. It remains to be seen whether the new American strategy will be able to funnel much needed resourvces to those in the Pakistani security forces who really need them.

War in Pakistan?

A good followup (from this questioning post) by Noah Shachtman on whether the US is actually at war in Pakistan as well as in it's neighbor. From the looks of Obama's policy it appears the answer is yes. American predator drones and American cash are certainly at work in the northwest tribal regions of the country and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that American advisors and trainers might one day also end up there.

Afghanistan's Past

Peter Bergen had a interesting column in the NYT a few days ago reminding people that the history of Afghanistan is not just a litany of imperial defeats. He describes the victories of Genghis Khan and the oft-forgotten British victory several decades after their much heralded defeat. However, the forces needed to pacify and then rest the country numbered in the hundreds of thousands and took decades, not an experience the US is in any hurry to repeat.

So while Bergen provides some comfort by providing historical examples of successful missions in Afghanistan, it's cold comfort in terms of the numbers of soldiers needed and years invested in the country.