You’ve probably seen it in press coverage – the Taliban has been executing some high-profile suicide attacks and assassinations in Kabul, Kandahar and elsewhere. Sometimes it looks pretty grim.
There are some bright spots, however. First off, the general consensus of learned folk across the spectrum seems to be that the Taliban are too depleted to execute large-scale attacks, so they are forced to resort to suicide attacks using single-man or small team attacks. Tied into this, we hear increasingly more frequent reports of the local populace diming out the local Taliban, identifying fighters and commanders or providing intel on the location of IEDs or weapons caches.
For what it’s worth, I’m also encouraged by US press reporting and op-ed pieces on the progress of the war effort. Most recently, Ronald Neumann and Michael O Hanlon (the former was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-07, and the latter of the somewhat left-of-center Brookings Institute) co-authored a piece entitled “Afghan Army is Finding its Footing,” which I located in USA Toady. While objectively citing the challenges and hurdles which remain, they painted an increasingly positive picture of the indigenous Afghan security posture. Here’s the link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-04-12-ohanlon-afghan-army-improving.htm
Going back two months, the venerable New York Times (a/k/a Pravda on the Hudson) published “The ‘Long War’ May Be Getting Shorter,” painted a similarly positive outlook: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/opinion/21nagl.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
None of these authors are looking at this war through rose-colored glasses, but they give equal attention to successes and challenges, and even some of our left-leaning media find themselves admitting that, despite serious mistakes in the early years of prosecuting this war, we are on the upswing and making progress. So the goal of a total security handoff to Afghan security forces may not be as farfetched as it might have seemed in the past.
And on a totally different topic, our Washington Capitals came back on Wednesday from a 3-0 deficit to spank the Rangers in double overtime, putting Bruce Boudreau’s boys up 3-1 in the playoff series. And yesterday afternoon, they came home to decisively throttle the Rangers, sending them home to watch the Stanley Cup from their living rooms. Go Caps! Rock the Red!
We got your shirt! Mike and I managed to get tixx for Sat! Since I have a ton of errands to run tomorrow, I'll try to remember to drop it off. Do you want me to wash it first, to try and save it from the laundry there?
ReplyDeleteAlso, can't remember if you have anything against oatmeal, dried cherries, raisins or walnuts.