Let's set aside your rather childish attempt to pigeonhole people who disagree with you into an ideological box

Not that YOU'D ever engage in such behavior, right, Anjin? Face it, you're transparent enough to read fine print through.

http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/

http://www.registan.net/

The second one is more anthropology, with a smattering of military and politics. The first is by someone who has served in Afghanistan and is more military oriented. All three write well and are knowledgeable. I have yet to find a good blog written by an Afghan. Would be nice to see what they think.

Steve

And isn't it interesting how a bunch of anti-war leftists are now suddenly experts in military tactics?

Let's set aside your rather childish attempt to pigeonhole people who disagree with you into an ideological box. Where would you like to start with our discussion of military strategy? The Peloponnesian War? The Battle Of Thermopylae? (I have been reading Herodotus, so I have Greece very much on my mind). The Punic wars? Julian's campaigns in Gaul and Parthia?

Let's have at it. I Just finished Julius Caesar's "Conquest of Gaul" and have started on "The Civil War", so I have my game face on.

Take you time Bit, do some Googling so you can sound informed when you get back to us...

Hope you are reading Christian's, Blue's blogs especially on some of these cultural issues. Capt. Thompson's pdf on deploying was very illustrative.

Can you provide some links, buddy? I'd like a look at those blogs, too. TIA

I do not see the Afghans generating an effective force anytime soon. The biggest problem, IMHO, is the governing quality in Afghanistan. If the unexpected happened, and the Afghan forces suddenly came up to speed, they would still be directed by crooks. Corruption is endemic there on a scale we just do not understand. The culture is just alien to us. Hope you are reading Christian's, Blue's blogs especially on some of these cultural issues. Capt. Thompson's pdf on deploying was very illustrative.

Steve

Some criticize the Bush Administration for the situation in which we now find ourselves, pointing out that the resources which were deployed in Iraq could have been used in Afghanistan. That’s true as far as it goes but in my view it only means we’d have gotten to where we are now sooner.

Yeah, but we'd be here with a military that hadn't spent the last several years bogged down in Iraq, with the concomitant wear and tear on man & machine. In short, truly finishing off AQ and the Taliban from this point would be much simpler & less risky - Iraq has been far worse that a simple waste of time to this nation.

Pakistan's interest still are for the Taliban or a like group to be in charge of Afghanistan. That is, Pakistan seeks a potential client state that is decidedly not inclined to ally with India.

That makes sense. The Pakistanis are freaked that India is trying to gain a foothold in Afghanistan. I sometimes I think the key to the Pakistan mess is in India (I believe the more rational of the two nations). Of course, things like Mumbai don't help much....or Kashmir....But still, if the India-Pakistan conflict could be resolved, that just might go some distance toward the solution of AQ-Taliban problem.

What really struck me though was Rashid's incredulity that the Bush administration did not heed his call for a generation-long commitment to the building and modernization of the Central Asian states. His two books are good IMHO, but if he thinks that they describe a landscape that Americans want to be involved in for decades, he needs to talk to Robert Kaplan about Balkan Ghosts.

Gen Bit: Let's review the plan.

Aide de Decamp: As you can see on this map, the tanks are arrayed in arc formation. The arty is placed here--it should provide more than adequate protection. Machine guns are placed here, here, and here. Three companies of infantry are dug in here, here, and here.

Gen Bit: I want a fourth company here.

Aide de Decamp: That might strain our resources, sir.

Gen Bit: Nevertheless, that fourth company is essential to success.

Aide de Decamp: Very well, sir.

Gen Bit: Air support?

Aide de Decamp: F-15s will be on station at continuously; 2 squadrons on Apaches will orbit here and here.

Gen Bit: Very good. The position seems well protected, but I think we need to armor it up some more.

Aide de Decamp: What is your thinking, sir?

Gen Bit: Well, this desk needs more steel plating. Really thick steel plating. And I want the sandbags around the office to be 4 deep and 12 high. And, just in case, I want a helo at the ready.

Aide de Decamp: I'll get on all that. I'll have the Marines send over a Sea Knight from Kaneohe Bay--should be here in a 10 minutes.

Gen Bit: Good. Can't be too prepared, you know.

Aide de Decamp: Yes sir.

As to this:

The typical practice of insurgents is to confront the military in open battle, conventional military conflict, when they’re strong enough to do so only to return to nonconventional strategies if they’re defeated. Can Pakistani officials be fool enough to believe otherwise?

My reading tells me that the political stock of the Taliban in Pakistan is decreasing daily, and not just among the Pakistani elites. Will the Taliban fish find enough water to swim in in Pakistan proper and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas? I think it's less of a sure thing now than it was a few months ago.

Now you're saying they're stupidly pro-war. You can't even keep your invective straight--why should anyone credit anything you say?

No, I'm still saying they're anti-war. I said at the time that such constration on Afghanistan while ignoring Iraq would have been counter productive at least... a point which current events have proven. (I also suggested at the time that serious control of Afghanistan without first controlling Iraq would be impossible...a point to which I still hold.)

As for the rest, the best way to convince someone that a group of people are inept, or that a particular posicy is a bad one, such as the military solution... is to try and apply such in impossible ways. Example, consntrating on Afghanistan as the left wanted. Dumb, and I think intentionally so.

Some criticize the Bush Administration for the situation in which we now find ourselves, pointing out that the resources which were deployed in Iraq could have been used in Afghanistan. That’s true as far as it goes but in my view it only means we’d have gotten to where we are now sooner.

@Bithead

True, and this is a point I made some time ago, when the subject of Democrats and their demands for increased commitments for Afghanistan first came up. If I'm not much mistaken, this also came up in a recent thread here.

Glad to see that the von Clausewitz of upstate New York weighing in with his observations. What you said in the previous thread was that the Democrats were stupidly anti-war:

we now have a leftist congress and president, the entire party of which ran on an anti-war platform.

Not anti-Iraq war.
Anti-war. Period.

Now you're saying they're stupidly pro-war. You can't even keep your invective straight--why should anyone credit anything you say?