Open Thread for Night Owls, Early Birds & Expats

Tom Engelhardt writes at The Nation:

What More Means in Afghanistan With Afghanistan, it always seems to be more and worse. More American (and NATO) troops "surging" in, more Taliban control in the countryside, more insurgent attacks, more sophisticated roadside bombs, more deadly suicide bombings, more dead American and NATO troops, more problems with U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan, more civilian deaths from American and NATO military operations, more U.S. bases being built, more billions of U.S. dollars needed for military operations -- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently indicated that the build-up of U.S. forces alone in that country in the next fiscal year could cost an extra $5.5 billion-- and, of course, yet more reports and studies indicating that everything yet tried to "stabilize" Afghanistan has gone desperately wrong. And always these are followed by the insistence that more of the same militarily, a further build-up of coalition military forces, another five or 10 or 20 years of foreign "training" programs for Afghan forces still "not ready for the task" -- no one asks how Taliban fighters, no less "Afghan," prove so ready to fight without years of American training -- is the only context for future success in "reconstructing" that country. Ann Jones, who was a humanitarian aid worker in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006 and wrote a moving book about the experience, Kabul in Winter, suggests just why this essentially repetitive formula, which will now pass as part of the new thinking of the Obama era, is bound to lead to more of the same. In her recent piece, "The Afghan Scam," she focuses on the "reconstruction" part of the formula, which is almost never given the spotlight, and shows just why, all military matters aside, it's such a hopeless shuck.

Get Afghanistan Right is an ad hoc coalition engaging in an intensive week of blogging on the subject of transforming U.S. policy toward that country. At the group's Web site, you can sign up for e-mail updates on the project and you can find these opinions, among others:

Where Do You Stand on Afghanistan? by Alex Thurston at The Seminal

Five Suggestions for Diplomatic Progress in South Asia by Alex Thurston at The Seminal

The Myth of an Afghan Counterinsurgency Strategy Derrick Crowe at Daily Kos

Getting Afghanistan Right by Sean-Paul Kelly at The Agonist.

Blowbackin’ in the Wind by Bob Buzzanco at SHAFR.org

We Can't Afford to Sink Deeper into the Afghan Quagmire by ZP Heller at Brave New Films

Obama's Got One Thing Right About the Mess In Afghanistan-- It's Inexorably Connected To The Mess In Pakistan by Howie Klein at DownWithTyranny

An Afghanistan 'Surge' Is a Losing Battle by Brahma Chellaney

RAWA's Standpointsby the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

Obama Must Get Afghanistan Right by Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation

Winning In Afghanistan by Andrew J. Bacevich

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