Obama's Toughest Decision

Two schools of thought on Afghanistan:

Now, as Americans debate whether or not to double down in Afghanistan, it’s striking how opinion is divided not according to left and right, or hawk and dove, but rather by the difference between the Wilsonian “what we must do” and the Kennanite “what we can do.”
Stephen Holmes, a left-leaning law professor at New York University, recently wrote a critique of General McChrystal’s plan that almost exactly echoed Will/Kennan: “Turning an illegitimate government into a legitimate one is simply beyond the capacities of foreigners, however wealthy or militarily unmatched.”

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a hawkish Democrat, has reportedly urged the president to devote less of the country’s energies to Afghanistan in order to apply them where they will do the most good — Pakistan. On the other hand, advocates of the proposed new strategy, like Peter Bergen, an expert on Islamic terrorism, invoke America’s “obligation” to the Afghan people and the strategic catastrophe that would come of ceding the country to the Taliban. One side reasons from the means, the other from the ends.

In the real world, of course, the distinction between these two very different dispositions is a fluid one. After all, in a true war of necessity, like World War II, a state and a people summon the capacity to do what must be done, no matter how difficult. So the objective question at the heart of the current debate is whether the battle for Afghanistan represents such a war, or whether — like those for Vietnam or Iraq — the problem that it presents can be solved by less bloody and costly means. NYT

Former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes, who runs the Arghand Cooperative in Afghanistan, has her own plan for Afghanistan. Chayes says resources should be focused on the people and the taliban should be rendered irrelevant. In this recent speech (in Sept.) at the University of Nebraska, Chayes said she's worried that Afghanistan will get left behind. She says it would be a mistake if the U.S. left Afghanistan. Chayes says the U.S. can't just be there to chase Al Qaeda. She also says Afghanistan needs more troops but they have to be used in a different way.

In August, Chayes said she bought five voter registration cards:

Sarah Chayes on Charlie Rose

Sarah Chayes, a former NPR reporter, lives and works in Afghanistan. She runs a cooperative there and was an advisor to now-ousted Gen. David McKiernan.
She knows Afghanistan and says the country is a barometer of the future. She also explains the situation there better than most.
Read what she says is needed in Afghanistan here.

Sarah Chayes Explains Afghanistan

I was disappointed to learn that the U.S. had to send troops to Afghanistan, that we still have to fight a war there but that's largely because I didn't understand what was going on in the region, until I listened to Terry Gross' interview with Sarah Chayes, a former NPR journalist, turned business woman. She leads a cooperative, Arghand Soaps, and is helping to rebuild in Kandahar.
Essentially, Bush blew it big time and the people are angry with Hamid Karzai, more than we read in the newspaper or hear on the TV.
Bush's people pretended that things were going well in Afghanistan. Chayes says the Karzai government is a criminal enterprise.
She says we have a 6 month window to try and make good in Afghanistan. Read her action plan for the region here.  Troops are necessary but economic aid is also needed.
Chayes says things have gotten so bad in Afghanistan that she now carries a gun because she is a possible Taliban target.
If you want to get a good understanding of what's going on in Afghanistan, listen to this.
You can also watch Bill Moyers' interview with Chayes here.
Drones in Pakistan: