Open Thread for Night Owls, Early Birds and Expats

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, writes Obama Must Get Afghanistan Right:

Some raise human rights concerns about the consequence of a US/NATO departure. In particular, some groups feel that US troops are needed to protect Afghan girls and women. But many Afghan women activists and organizations -- like former Afghan parliament member Malalai Joya and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) --have called for a withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. Here's how Joya put it: "Over 85 percent of Afghans are living below the poverty line and don't have enough to eat. While the US military spends $65,000 a minute in Afghanistan for its operations, up to 18 million people (out of a population of only 26 million) live on less than $2 US a day, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.... As soon as possible, the US/NATO troops must vacate our country. We want liberation, not occupation. With the withdrawal of occupation forces, we will only have to face one enemy instead of two." We currently spend $36 billion annually on military operations in Afghanistan which would climb with escalation. We've spent $11 billion since 2002 on non-military development. Withdrawal of troops doesn't end US aid--it allows resources to be spent more wisely, focusing on creating opportunities and rights for women, and alternatives to the narcotics trade for poor farmers. As Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of Afghan Women's Mission said, "For this, or any other idea to work, the US occupation must end. That's the first big step to recovery." While President-elect Obama has the possibility of re-engaging with a world repulsed by the destructive polices of the Bush Administration, it is likely that escalating the war in Afghanistan will endanger that possibility. Escalation may cause a rift with European allies whose people have turned against this war, and our ability to extricate ourselves from the quagmire will only get harder. Consider the warning of former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski: "We are running the risk of repeating the mistake the Soviet Union made.... Our strategy is getting in deeper and deeper." Russian military officers caution that Afghans cannot be conquered, as the Soviets attempted to do in the 1980s with nearly twice as many troops as NATO and the US currently have in the country and with three times the number of Afghan troops that Karzai can deploy. The best prospect for more concerted action against Al-Qaeda is a planned withdrawal of US forces, and for reconstruction to be taken over by a multinational coalition that has as few American fingerprints as possible. The fact that this is an American project is the principal reason why Pakistani groups support the Islamic insurgents. To be fair, President-elect Obama has spoken on the importance development aid and resolving the opium trade; but military escalation remains the centerpiece of his plan. The point of withdrawal is not to abandon Afghanistan, but to take a different approach to targeted aid, smart diplomacy, and intelligence cooperation.

Meanwhile, the federally funded, 25-year-old United States Institute of Peace, independent and non-partisan, but tinged right of center, issued a new report today in conjunction with a speech by General David Petraeus, in which he "predicted a long war in Afghanistan, without quantifying it." The report, The Future of Afghanistan, is a collection of essays written by 10 experts whose résumés you can read here. They are Marvin G. Weinbaum, Amin Tarzi, Barnett R. Rubin, William Maley, Nader Nadery, Jolyon Leslie, Grant Kippen, Ali A. Jalali, Haseeb Humayoon, and Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam.

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The Overnight News Digest is posted and includes the story Pakistan fires official who confirmed Mumbai gunman's identity.