It’s a tough week to be in the Army. The Afghan National Army, that is. As the NYT times reports this afternoon, an independently run ANA mission this week has failed. The operation began when the Afghan Army sent a battalion of about 300 men from the First Brigade, 201st Army Corps, into a village [...]

Speaking of the reconciliation/governance options before the Afghan government, don’t miss Thomas Ruttig’s Q&A at Foreign Policy. This point is worth highlighting: I find the differentiation into “reintegration” (of low and mid-level Taliban) and “reconciliation” (talk to leaders who break their ties with al-Qaida) is artificial and not up to the realities. The Taliban have [...]

Hamid Karzai’s trip to Kandahar to herald the “process” for securing the city that he, President Obama and Gen. McChrystal agreed to publicly in Washington places some doubt around Friday’s Times piece about Karzai seeking a peace-at-any-price deal with the Taliban. “This operation requires sacrifice, and without sacrifice you cannot restore peace to Kandahar,” Mr. [...]

About that earlier post on how Obama wanted Karzai to respond to July 2011 by governing but Karzai responded to it by accelerating Taliban reconciliation? Fired intel chief Amrullah Saleh presents that contention to the New York Times. This could very easily be the grinding axe of a cashiered official. But prudence suggests that Mark [...]

It still feels weird to think of Afghanistan as subject to a (tentative, initial, seemingly unrequited) peace process. But in the spirit of the prior post, check out Caroline Wadhams’ warnings about the Karzai outreach plan. I’m a little unclear what her ideas are for bolstering the process — the international community pressing Karzai to… [...]

This is from Gen. McChrystal’s August 2009 counterinsurgency guidance: An ISAF patrol was traveling through a city at a high rate of speed, driving down the center to force traffic off the road. Several pedestrians and other vehicles were pushed out of the way. A vehicle approached from the side into the traffic circle.  The [...]

Dave Weigel has excerpts from a Liz Cheney speech in which ties Hamid Karzai into the broader nonsense-meme that Obama hates America’s allies. Afghan President Karzai, whose support we need if we are going to succeed in Afghanistan, is being treated to an especially dangerous and juvenile display from this White House. They dress him [...]

I had a weird experience today. A reporter friend whom I respect greatly asked me if I had contact information for Peter Galbraith because whoa did I see Galbraith implied Karzai was on those opiates? I emailed him a way of getting in touch with the guy and told him Galbraith was messing around. No [...]

Look, obviously we’re meddling in Afghan governance. We have invested tens of billions of dollars, 1000 lives and will soon have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. We bolster subnational governance and ministerial performance; seek to influence agricultural production; and we’re building a security infrastructure. Call it appropriate or inappropriate. It exists. So just because Hamid Karzai [...]

Better than an overlong post, I suppose. Notice what Karzai’s saying about Kandahar and how it aligns well to use McChrystal’s own impulses against the general.