Incredibly, President Barack Obama’s in-depth Afghanistan review is underplaying the evident peril that arming unruly warlords empowers them to use American war techniques to scuttle his agenda and settle mutual scores with more lethal force instead . It is fast-forwarding two great dangers. First, it is ensuring that Afghanistan can have no central government in Kabul capable of enforcing discipline on the...

Message to America: A bewildered man emerges Wednesday from a restaurant in Peshawar, Pakistan, to a scene of utter devastation. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed at least 107. If this editorial from Pakistan’s The Nation is anything to go by, Hillary Clinton’s “hearts and minds” visit to Pakistan is, as the headline says, “falling flat”...

Now that most economists, our government, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street Barons, and our ignorant and shallow 24/7 info-entertainment Media pundits have pronounced that the recession is over, there are no more excuses. For all those people still lounging around on unemployment benefits, given up looking, or working at temporary and part-time jobs, get off your lazy duffs. There are no more excuses. Take...

Yes, yes, to fight the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. But eight years later, American blood and treasure are still being poured into a country of dirt-poor, illiterate people who support themselves by growing poppy for opium and heroin under one of the most corrupt governments in the world. As Barack Obama makes a midnight visit to honor the incoming dead and console their families, critics may sneer at...

The vote is in. Tom Friedman says no more troops for Afghanistan. Why? When I think back on all the moments of progress in that part of the world — all the times when a key player in the Middle East actually did something that put a smile on my face — all of them have one thing in common: America had nothing to do with it. America helped build out what they started, but the breakthrough didn’t start...

Two questions that come up when I write on the subject of our nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, are why it sometimes takes so long for the Medal to be awarded and whether an award can be “upgraded” to the Medal of Honor. (I use that term reluctantly because I don’t want to make awards and decorations for our brave troops sound like a product that can be improved—“upgraded.”) I...

Tom Friedman says don’t send more troops to Afghanistan, because there are no positive trends to build on, like the Anbar Awakening before the surge in Iraq. Yet back in 2007, Friedman condemned the surge precisely because there was no progress to build on: January 3, 2007 Now President Bush wants a “surge” of more U.S. troops to Baghdad, in one last attempt to bring order. Whenever I hear this surge...

Speaking as one who has been critical of most of President Obama’s domestic initiatives this year, I find myself in the curious position of having to praise him three times in one week. First, he moved to finally provide long overdue improvements to the nation’s power grid. Then he worked with Congressional leadership to shut down foreign tax dodge schemes. (Sadly, with Charlie Rangel’s name...

David Adams commanded a US advisory team in the Afghan province of Khost. Ann Marlowe reported from Afghanistan. They write, From the beginning of 2007 to March 2008, the 82nd Airborne Division’s strategy in Khost proved that 250 paratroopers could secure a province of a million people in the Pashtun belt. The key to success in Khost—which shares a 184 kilometer-long border with Pakistan’s lawless...

There’s plenty of material out there, but Steve Biddle’s article in TNR [subscription only] stands head and shouders above the rest. Even if you’re against more troops, you should test your logic against Biddle. For example, NYT columnist Nick Kristof wrote: The United States was born of our ancestors’ nationalistic resentment of a foreign power whose troops we saw as occupiers, not protectors....

“I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary,” the President said this week at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. “And if it’s necessary, we will back you up to the hilt.” He was talking to men and women in uniform but answering an American who never wore one, Dick Cheney, who has accused him of “dithering” about sending more troops to Afghanistan during...

Matthew Yglesias has some interesting thoughts on conflicting values for progressives in the Israel-Palestinian conflict:

Michael Goldfarb is not interested in constructive criticism of J Street. What Mike wants is to expose J Street as a fringe, left-wing activist group that only pretends to be pro-Israel to advance it’s relativist agenda. So call Mike partisan, but don’t forget that partisan critics often make substantive points, regardless of their intentions. And Mike is both very sharp and very entertaining,...

For those of you who believe our mission in Afghanistan is a war of futility as I do then this article in today’s Washington Post reaffirms that notion. As you will learn, Matthew Hoh is no peacenik rabblerouser but a seasoned combat Marine, civil engineer and member of an elite Foreign Service team whose resignation shocked the top civilian foreign policy leaders in the Obama administration. “I...

The Samaritans were a despised and denigrated tribal group in ancient times. Yet, who was it who had the eyes to see, the heart to act when all others avoided the battered and ran away? It was a Samaritan. As the ancient story is told… a poor soul lay by the side of the road, beaten to a bloody pulp. Men of the priestly classes crossed to the other side of the road to avoid helping the bleeding man....

The New York Times is reporting now that two day care centers were hit in the blast. At least 30 children are dead:

It was a busy weekend and I’d like to give people at the Moderate Voice a heads up on some of what we’ve been covering. From Pakistan’s The Nation Newspaper, the editorial headlined Hillary Clinton Should Mind Her Own Media! attacks the secretary of state for criticizing Pakistan’s media coverage of the huge U.S. aid bill to that nation. Then for Pakistan’s Pak Tribune in an...

“We” is the United States. We won the war. The surge worked. The naysayers were all wrong; thanks to U.S. military might, Iraqis (see them? Shiny, happy Iraqis!) have been liberated from death, destruction, grief, and sorrow.

Just talking myself through the news of the day. Again. the way one does in a trauma/ triage situ. Most minds dont follow a straight path when learning the news. They veer into old memories. They look for patterns. They try to understand, so they can see, what can be done to help. Today, I’m saying to myself… Don’t go numb like it’s the farm report, pork bellies up, oats and soy down. Don’t...

Mike Keefe, The Denver Post This cartoon is copyrighted and authorized to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Reports from Bratislava, Slovakia, today indicate NATO defense ministers support Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendations to increase counterinsurgency strategy, nation building and additional troops in Afghanistan. Easy for them to say. More than two-thirds of the 28-country NATO forces totalling 104,000 troops are American and far less than those one-third are involved in combat operations. The ministers...

Life imitates and irritates art as leading musicians join a Freedom of Information suit to discover how loud rock was used as an instrument of torture against Guantanamo detainees. Members of REM, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails want to know details of when and how their work was employed to break down terror suspects, although the CIA insists that the sounds were “not for punitive purposes–and at...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly told the press that she has the votes for a robust public option — but a report in The Politico contends she has now run into trouble: Speaker Nancy Pelosi counted votes Thursday night and determined she could not pass a “robust public option” — the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national...

It would appear from this angry article in Iran’s rigidly state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, that when it suits its own interests, the leadership in Tehran condones listening to the music of the Rolling Stones. With allusions to the all-seeing-eye of the Freemasons and a section on how Americans abuse women, this is the regime’s latest verbal assault on the United States. The author, Kian Mokhtari,...

If I hadn’t just used this formulation for another post, I would have titled this one, “Dude, Where’s My Oil Contract?”