The choice

That $30 billion figure is roughly half the estimated fraud from just the stimulus bill passed earlier this year; for example, the $6.4 billion spent to 'create or save' jobs in phantom districts that don't actually exist. Where did the money go? No one seems to know.

Three cheers for government job creation!

This notion that the government is the answer to job creation is so absurd that it should have died decades back.

Poor President Obama has been left to clean up the Afghan mess neglected by former President Bush Jr.
Try all he can, it is doubtful that Obama will succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan as long as Pakistan continues to shelter Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda safely ensconced in Quetta, provincial capital of Baluchistan.

As General McChrystal observed in his assessment to the President:
1. Most insurgent fighters in Afghanistan are directed by a small number of Afghan senior leaders based in Pakistan that work through an alternative political infrastructure in Afghanistan.
2. The Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) based in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, is the No. 1 threat to US/NATO mission in Afghanistan. At the operational level, the Quetta Shura conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Mohammed Omar (Afghan Taliban Chief) announces his guidance and intent for the coming year.
3. Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan. Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, are linked with al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's lSI. Al Qaeda and associated movements (AQAM) based in Pakistan channel foreign fighters, suicide bombers, and technical assistance into Afghanistan, and offer ideological motivation, training, and financial support.

While mounting South Waziristan offensive, Pakistani establishment continues to deny the existence of Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) located in Baluchistan. Besides sheltering Haqqani’s group and Mullah Mohammed Omar’s Afghan Taliban, democratic government of Pakistan continues to sign peace deals with Pakistani Taliban groups like the ones led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir, allowing them to continue to terrorize Afghanistan so long as those groups do not terrorize Pakistan.

Afterall Pakistan is sheltering these Afghan groups since 2001 for a reason - to reestablish Pakistan’s writ in Afghanistan as and when US leaves.

As long as US continues to coddle Pakistan and as long as US is unwilling to use its aid leverage to force Pakistan to crack down on not just select few in border areas but ALL Taliban/Al Qaeda factions within entire Pakistan, US mission has NO chance of succeeding in Afghanistan.

Our foreign policy engenders anti-Americanism.

We have indirectly killed >1 million muslim civilians in Iraq and Af/Pak.

The US-led war on terrorism has left in its wake a far more unstable world than existed on that momentous day in 2001: Rather than diminishing, the threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates has grown, engulfing new regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe and creating fear among peoples from Australia to Zanzibar. The US invasions of two Muslim countries have so far failed to contain either the original organization or the threat that now comes from its copycats in British or French cities who have been mobilized through the Internet. The al Qaeda leader is still at large, despite the largest manhunt in history.

Afghanistan is once again staring down the abyss of state collapse, despite billions of dollars in aid, a hundred thousand Western troops, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The Taliban have made a dramatic comeback. The international community had an extended window of opportunity for several years to help the Afghan people—they failed to take advantage of it.

Pakistan has undergone a slower but equally bloody meltdown. In 2007 there were 56 suicide bombings in Pakistan that killed 640 people, compared to just 6 bombings in the previous year.

In 2009, American power lies shattered, US credibility lies in ruins. Ultimately the strategies of the Bush administration have created a far bigger crisis in South and Central Asia than existed before 9/11.

Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the rise of Iran as a major regional power, the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the wreckage of Iraq, with over two million external refugees and the ethnic cleansing of its Christian population, and now the implosion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, probably the most dangerous development of all.

This is what the US government’s Defense Science Board has to say on the situation

“American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

• Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies.

The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that
“freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World — but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.

• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.

• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have
elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack — to broad public support.

• What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of “terrorist” groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.”

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Our messing around overseas (witness our clear involvement with the terrorist murder of 5 Iranian revolutionary guards recently) causes blowback terrorism. It does not matter whether or not AQ has any safe havens or not or whether Hezbollah is rearming— regular people — heck, even US army officers, it appears — can become radicalized by the sheer extent of our injustice abroad.

Note I am not justifying what they did. Their means are WRONG. But their cause is, at least partly, just.

We need to stop our addiction to oil and leave the middle east.

Force — even when wielded by the seemingly strong against the nominally weak — continues to be an exceedingly uncertain instrument. The United States’ penchant for projecting power has created as many problems as it has solved. Genuinely decisive outcomes remain rare, costs often far exceed expectations, and unintended and unwelcome consequences are legion.

The pursuit of US military dominance is an illusion, the principal effect of which is to distort strategic judgment by persuading policymakers that they have at hand the means to make short work of history’s complexities. The real need is to wean the United States from its infatuation with military power and come to a more modest appreciation of what force can and cannot do.

We have to come to the painful conclusion that we have created much of the terrorism and anti-Americanism that we are subject to via our terrible foreign policies. It will be difficult to protect us from our (well-earned) blowback without fixing our own foreign policy.

Given that offshore balancing is a superior grand strategy to direct involvement in Afghanistan, that we cannot win the war there since the Taliban can simply hide out in Pakistan, that the Taliban is not even an international organization, but rather, seeks only to rule Afghanistan, and that our own economic woes are quickly undermining a position of international primacy and will soon hurt our ability to project military power, I have to agree that the decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan seems very problematic.

That means that if the $30 billion were invested in infrastructure, not only would it enhance American competitiveness -- the quality of lives of Americans and the strength of our economy -- it would also produce 1.2 million jobs.

Not to be too much of the "straight" man, but there is no guarantee that Feinstein's estimate scales. Moreover, infrastructure isn't immediate unless you dump the money on whatever projects happen to be available, and even then there's some delay (usually over paperwork).

Your presentation of an increase in forces in Afghanistan as a binary alternative to investment in infrastructure is worthless given that there are thousands of other allocation items that must be considered in order to make a rational determination as to which allocation options to choose. Similarly, your assertion that "there is no credible argument" is one of the oldest dodges in the history of thought. For it is unreasonable to demand proof of the non-existence of something, leaving the burden of proof not on the one making the unsupported assertion, but on the one receiving the assertion. However, it is not unreasonable at all to reject your claim out of hand, since it is wholly unsupported.

If you are still reading, the logic lesson is over. I fully agree that a focus on what we can do in Afghanistan is a much better approach. One of the obvious things within our power is to topple to corrupt government of Karzai and his cronies. We have something of a moral obligation to do so, given that we put him there to begin with. It is hypocrisy of the worst kind to say that we must leave if the Afghans don't do there part. The Afghans had little choice in arriving at the so-called democracy with which they are saddled. U.S. policy is to blame for the corrupt government.

Another thing we can do is to listen to the Afghan people when they tell us that a U.S.-style democracy is ill-suited to their social and cultural mores. If we modify our policy to support Afghans in creating a government of their own choosing, we can gain their support and use our troops to thwart those who would establish a terror-state. If we continue with our bizarre assumption that given a choice, every society would choose to be like us, failure is guaranteed and we should leave immediately, not to save America's economy, but to avoid making the mess we created any worse.

To some extent, I agree with you Mr. Rothkopf. The multiplier effect of money spent on infrastructure within our own country is proven to be a worthy and effective investment. It creates jobs and without such investments in the past, hundreds of bridges, buildings and the interstate highway system simply would not exist. One can only imagine what $30 billion could do in 2009. Yet I feel that the troop surge is a necessity unless you endorse the Taliban and Al Qaeda continuing to destabilize the country and the region. Even with a surge, what is to say that they won't go into hiding and simply return as soon as we leave, $30 billion later, forcing us to return two, five or ten years down the road. I think we need to make an investment in the future of Afghanistan beyond sending more troops if we are to actually solve the root cause of the problem. I expand on this idea at: http://www.songofsibyl.com/2009/11/17/to-surge-or-not-to-surge/

Early morning time, the mist is Sundance II Ugg Boots dim. Curved river bank, willow obviously elegant like smoke. Far does not see the mountain, nearly does not see the ship, only a little selects the lights, embellishes in the Classic Tall Ugg Boots faintly recognizable mist. The young young schoolchild, sings in this mist at sunset; In a hurry the pedestrian, the moist hair clothing which fills by the mist. Most beautiful, when is in the fog the park, pavilion Taiwan Classic Mini Ugg Boots pavilion, porch bridge park, fuzzy, partly visible. Let the human think that imitates, if places oneself in unreal, is considering, is in the world, plays in the heavenly palace?