Keep trying to rewrite history; Bush IS a failure, but only in part because he ALLOWED bin Laden to escape capture when their best chance arose during the battle of Tora Bora, and then compounded the mistake by pulling troops and resources from Afghanistan to his Iraq folly.

It’s actually well documented; try the Google.

The drones seem to kill at least as many civilians as ‘insurgents,’ if not more.

That doesn’t seem very effective to me when the idea is to gain the trust and support of the population that already feels as though yet another invader has come for an uninvited and extended stay, simply because their country happens to have geographic significance to Western oil interests.

That said, a troop pull-out from Afghanistan won’t be 100%. We’ll keep intelligence and forward operators there.

A Predator drone is more likely to kill Osama bin Laden than a column of troops.

And for all we know he’s probably in Pakistan anyways.

Where did it say that?

Of course it was a rhetorical question (picked up only by the low-tooth-per-capita blogs) and not a policy decision. Besides would ever commit bribery with Iran or other rogue states?

Moran.

(I couldn’t help myself.)

Fixed.

That was only one of an entire brickyard of reasons why we labelled Bush a failure. And in case you hadn’t noticed “strikes against Qaeda cells primarily [not exclusively] in Pakistan” would actually increase our chances of nabbing OBL.

Plus, don’t forget, Farris, Bush succeeded in moving the goalposts to the back of the cheap seats: his failure to pursue OBL when he had a decent chance to do so only made it that much more difficult for the next guy.

It’ll work out great if everything in Pakistan stays fairly stable. If things in Pakistan do not, we will probably find ourselves drawn into a Pakastinani Civil war, and possible a greater war involving India.

While extremely unlikely, the potential for a very serious downside is there. I am not sure what an upside really looks like. We could spend 50 years there and not see any progress at all.

Now that this Administration wants to give up and go home without accomplishing their primary objective, I guess we can label them failures as well.

Mark Helprin – the guy who works for Mickey Mouse? Yeah, he’s a fountain of wisdom.

No, KXB, you’re thinking of Mark Halperin (assuming you were thinking-I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt).

Look, leave aside the cliche of how Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. It is primarily a graveyard for other Afghans. So long as Pakistan holds on to its paranoia about India invading it from the east, Islamabad will contain to view Afghanistan to the west as a source of “strategic depth”.

Al Qaeda is largely limited to issued audio cassettes in a digital download world. I’m not sure it’s worth more American lives. The drones have proven to be very effective, and they can fly for 24 hours.

To all the folks here and at other liberal blogs who have written the following “digby nails it today in her blog”, this is one time I am in agreement.

Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy.….

I’d say this was today’s must reading if not for the literary and political genius Mark Helprin weighing in at the WSJ…

Obama and the Politics of Concession
–Mark Helpprin

During last year’s campaign, Sen. Joe Biden famously remarked that, if his ticket won, it wouldn’t be long before “the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy” on foreign affairs. Last week, President Obama, brilliantly wielding the powers of his office, managed to fail that test not just once but twice, buckling in the face of Russian pressure and taking a giant wooden nickel from Iran.….

The man can write.

I’m sure they still are listening to the generals. Then they make decisions … which are not always exactly what the generals say. That’s how civilian control of the military works

“Should we trust Barack Obama, who more than a year ago called for sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan? The fact is, al-Qaida and the Taliban—the people who actually attacked us on 9/11—have regrouped in those mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and are plotting new attacks. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff echoed Barack’s call for more troops.”

Of course, as we know, anything these guys say has an expiration date so it doesn’t matter, right?