for the record I think terms like "war on crime" & "war on drugs" are equally stupid. certain militarizing the latter hasn't helped any - has if anything made it worse I'd think - and I don't the think the WoT has been much different.
totally agree w your final point here wrt the war on drugs, i must say. it's certainly welcome when they stress all the soft power-type aspects of this 'war' and not just the military component; of course even classic inter-state war throughout history has relied on more than just the fighting angle, there's propaganda and so on. though admittedly the war on drugs in, say, the UK, is a bit different from the war on drugs in, say, the USA.
i like the idea of a war on poverty though - granted, that's more common in Yurp than your side of the pond, perhaps
cheers P, BTW, for the NYT link!
certainly agreed w the kick out corruption one, and the wisdom of Paul R. Pillar's observation re Pakistani patronage. Gretchen Peters, money ends up where it belongs, is a nice thought, of course.
re Exum on taking a risk; Foust consistently says similar on his own page.
the Kagans, oh dead, head-desk. international troops need to be deployed better, not necessarily in more numbers.
incidentally, i'm watching Robert Dallek - the respected historian - on C-SPAN. clearly a very smart, indeed warm, guy, and the programme had the idea to invite him on and discuss Vietnam analogies: which he has over-egged at times, though he is respectful and measured toward all callers, even the tin-foil hat ones.
(also he briefly mentioned older British and Soviet experiences in Afghanistan, and one of his sentences contained, frankly a hint of a sort of generic anti-Afghan aside, which i didn't care for in the slightest.)
all the above airy observations coming from my non-American armchair, of course. smite at will if you want.
BTW, that bit at the start, the below quote is my italics
If we see no genuine progress on such steps toward government responsibility, the United States should “Afghanize,” draw down troops and prepare to mitigate the inevitable humanitarian disaster that will come when the Kabul government falls to the Taliban — which, in the absence of reform, it eventually and deservedly will.
— DAVID KILCULLEN,
clearly reformation needs to happen in certain areas (slow and steady wins it), but i couldn't bring myself to write that word, especially if i'd just honestly acknowledged an "inevitable humanitarian disaster" half a sentence earlier... ...but i am not going to lots of service funerals every month, what do i know... ...also i appreciate Kilcullen says "prepare to mitigate".
sorry, a typically muddle-headed scott post :slanted: