Karzai and his government are probably corrupt, by Western standards of governance. But I suspect that corruption may have always been a way of life in Afghanistan. And I'm not sure it is any more corrupt than the current government of Russia, or of Cook County for that matter.

I'd like to know if his government is any more corrupt than the Afghan government in 1979 before the Soviet invasion, or the ones in 1970, 1960, 1950, etc. -- or even the one in 1800. Expecting something better from an Afghan government may be expecting too much.

OTOH, Karzai does seem to have some kind of bi-polar disorder, as described in Woodward's book. His statements, policies, positions, attitudes and opinions seem to vary wildly day to day -- or at least that is what the reporting seems to indicate. But perhaps that too is not unusual in Afghan leaders. One of the ways we prevailed over the Taliban in 2001 was by persuading many of the warlords to change their allegiance, usually by paying them off. Rapidly and continually shifting allegiances, attitudes, and policies by government officials, warlords, and tribal leaders that vary with political, military, security, and economic conditions may be norm over there.

So what we may be seeing in Afghanistan and hand wringing over may simply be what has been business as usual in Afghanistan for centuries. This can make the place seem to be a hopeless lost cause when viewed from our own political and cultural frame of reference.

If this is what Afghanistan has always been it is probably not wise for us to try to remake it into something else as a condition of our involvement.

Our objective is to fight the jihadist extremists, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda and prevent them from running Afghanistan and destabilizing the government of Pakistan. As long as we prevent them from having their way in Afghanistan and Pakistan we are winning. If we give up, then they win.

This conflict is a test of wills and perseverance. If we have the will to prevail we will. If not we won't. I always knew that Bush had the will to prevail, and so did our enemies. The same cannot be said of the current occupant of the WH. On the plus side, I think he is terrified of the potential consequences of "losing" in Afghanistan, and rightly so. Ironically, I think Obama is too much of a coward to do what he would really like to do and pull out. So he will probably do what is required to at least persevere. And so the fight will go on. I think this is what Patraeus is expecting.

Comment from the BLACKFIVE thread about this.

"It’s a plane. We see them all the time like this. Inbound from Southeast Asia or Hawaii.

As a witness to thousands of launches from Vandenberg AFB, this contrail does NOT follow the normal and predictable atmospheric parameters. As a rocket goes up, it passes through dozens of different wind patterns, disturbances, and pressure layers. This results in the smoke trail twisting into loops, pretzels, long curves, and various rainbows of colors as the vapor freezes at different altitudes. Not to mention, the damn thing would be traveling a hell of a lot faster than that video showed. This "smoke" is quite even in its disruption, because it is all at the same altitude.

This is nothing more than the contrail of an airliner, the bright “flame” in the video is the sun reflecting off the belly of the aircraft, as the sun is visibly lower than it is.

No secrets, no conspiracy, no show of force to Asia(really? two atomic bombs weren’t convincing enough?). Just a bunch of tourists coming home.

I mean really, thinking a little will not hurt you brain. American tracking stations would know about this the moment it left the water, had it been a ballistic missile. Not to mention any Boomer, or half awake attack sub, would have heard the launch from the sub they had been tracking for days......"

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2010/11/missile-lau...

Take a look at the last link I provided.

I'm writing this all off as nonsense.

The "missile" was not a missile. It was an aircraft. That was the contrail from an aircraft. Similar affects have been seen in the past. Atmospheric and optical conditions made it look a bit like the vapor trail left by a missile. But it wasn't.

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Mystery-Missile-thi...
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Mystery-Missile-thi...
http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/#more-4

From the last link...

"An interesting contrail cropped up off the coast of San Clemente, Orange County, California on December 31st 2009. The curious shape led some people to think it’s a missile launch, which it does kind of look like (all taken from San Clemente)"

A photo is included at the link.

In that part of the planet "abandoned" seems to be a euphemism for "stopped giving us money and paying attention to us",

Before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 that region had been "abandoned" by the entire world for centuries except for "The Great Game" between Russia and Great Britain in the 1800's.

Abandon Pakistan? That's rich.

I'm not a great fan of Woodward but I recently finished "Obama's Wars". One thing that jumps out is that without exception everyone thinks that many elements in the Pak government and military are double-dealing and playing on both sides of the Taliban fence. They have their reasons, primarily a fanatical fear of India, but to say that we would be "abandoning" them if we decided to no longer play the game their way is ludicrous.

And I say that as a solid unwavering long time supporter of our efforts in Afghanistan since 9/11.

Pakistan is neither fully a friend or fully an enemy in this fight. They are both a help and a hindrance. They cannot be trusted and we never know what they will or won't do. Until they truly decide which side they are on, get their house in order, behave accordingly, and become a trusted ally they have no credible claim to complain about anything the US does or might do.

Sadly, I think there are Paks who wholeheartedly support us and can rightly be called allies. But that cannot be said of the leadership, government, military, and country as a whole.

Not quite.

"At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. Tokyo Trials, that Begala says McCain is referring to, only seven Japanese war criminals were executed. Every one of them was convicted of either being complicit in or directly comitting atrocities and murder on a grand scale." http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/180923/sorry....

Ignoring the “is water boarding torture” argument, I think there is little doubt that at some point even our current Beloved Dear Leader would use it with Holder’s approval.

Water boarding can work to obtain actionable information. The arguments about extracting “confessions” using this interrogation technique are irrelevant. Obtaining information is the objective, not a confession. Obviously, we need to be able to confirm that the information we receive is factual, but that is far from an impossible task.

So the question becomes “at what point is water boarding justified?”, if ever. Is it justified if it will save 100 lives? 1000 lives? How about 10,000 lives? Or 100,000 lives? Perhaps 1,000,000 lives? Certainly if the choice is between the lives of the entire population of the US or we water board a KSM the answer is easy, unless one is a suicidal raving lunatic of an idealist with a self-destructive martyr complex.

The usual counter argument is that these hypotheticals are not realistic. That is a very weak argument. It is simply untrue and it is not difficult to counter. For example, if we had KSM in custody days before 9/11 we may have been able to prevent 9/11 by water boarding him. If 9/11 had gone as well as possible for Al Qaeda 30,000 would have been slaughtered in an hour instead of 3000. So it is very easy to construct a plausible scenario where the choice is 30,000 lives vs water boarding someone like KSM.

So I ask the sanctimonious and self righteous, at what point would they approve water boarding? How many lives does it take to justify subjecting a terrorist to a procedure that does not physically harm him in any way – a procedure so physically benign that 10 minutes later the subject could play a game of basketball as well as he could before the procedure, and without requiring any treatment for any injury of any kind?

I think Gates has been worn down by politics. When you are surrounded by libs day in day out, need to be diplomatic, and must constantly compromise it can take a toll and start affecting your judgment.

Time to go Bob. May as well let Obama, Biden, and Donilon do whatever they are going to do. They are going to do it anyway.

Chalk up another epic fail to PC.