Archive for October 29th, 2009

RAND Forum on U.S. Policy Afghanistan

C-Span.org, 29 October 2009.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/10/29/Terr/A/24975/RAND+Forum+on+US+Policy+Afghanistan.aspx

AfPak-Iraq: Wrong War, Wrong Thinking. The United States faces mounting problems in the three leading conflict-zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Paul Rogers. Open Democracy, 29 October 2009. Hosted on the Commondreams website.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/03-6

Excerpt:

If there is a way ahead, it rests not on short-term calculations about troop numbers but on a larger reassessment by the Barack Obama administration of the entire US security posture in the middle east and southwest Asia. This will have to do more than crisis-manage the dire problems inherited from George W Bush; what is needed is no less than a move beyond military-led thinking to an integrated understanding of what security in the 21st century actually is.

Historically Unimportant Intelligence Board May Actually Become Important

Spencer Ackerman. The Washington Independent, 29 October 2009.
http://washingtonindependent.com/65640/historically-unimportant-intelligence-board-may-actually-become-important

False Dichotomy: We have more options in Afghanistan than Biddle lets on

Michael A. Cohen. The New Republic, 29 October 2009.
http://www.tnr.com/article/world/disputations-false-dichotomy

for Biddle article see: http://www.comw.org/wordpress/dsr/is-there-a-middle-way-biddl

Excerpt:

In poker terms, Biddle’s argument is the equivalent of betting all your chips on an inside straight draw. And then doing it again on the next hand.