Deeper into Harm's Way:

On Friday 03.27.09, POTUS announced an additional military force commitment into Afghanistan, and further aid for the Pakistani Government. There is a link in today's title referencing a fantastic article in "Mother Jones". Therein, Richard Holbrooke, and others, discuss some of the obstacles that administration officials expect to encounter during the process of achieving our new stated goals for the region.

In Afghanistan, our addressing of poppy production, the opium trade, and rampant corruption are obviously chief amongst our challenges of working towards functional governance. It has been stated by this administration, and SP agrees, that the elimination of failed states is central to achieving the complete isolation of Al Qaeda, so that we can finally move to decapitate it's leadership.

Make no mistake, however, till this point, we have had a disastrous policy in Afghanistan, and in Central Asia generally. And that is to say disastrous for all parties: Americans, Afghans, Pashtuns, Pakistanis, local tribes people, Indians, and the other players in the region.

To be realistic, (for the last few years) Al Qaeda has demonstrated little more than being a glorified media/broadcasting agency. Their leadership is responsible for more badly produced jihadist videos than actual acts of terror. (For example, the attacks in Mumbai earlier this year are more the product of friction and long established guerillas fighting long standing disagreements between Pakistan and India, than a product of Al Qaeda's strategy and influence.)

But despite all of Al Qaeda's recent irrelevancy, we have proven grossly impotent in finding that organizations senior leadership and bringing it to justice. After seven years, we have nothing to show for our incursion and action in the region, save further destabilization, American casualties, and huge opportunity costs at home. The absurd hemorrhaging of geo-political and socio-economic resources, here and abroad has thoroughly harmed our country.

Because of the current state of Afghanistan and Pakistan, an anathema, and thorough policy repudiation, should be placed on #43's administration. That administration's handling of the original combat front on our path for securing justice after 9.11, should be a forever lesson to Americans and a stark mile marker in our memories.

With that in mind we should, for now, support cogent policy from this POTUS, as long as it: asserts reasonable goals for the region, finally achieves justice for 9.11, and doesn't further damage our world standing along the way. We need to be highly vigilant in how this administration identifies and achieves our objectives, for the devil is in the details, our future is too important to have littered with inconsequential action, and we've been fooled too long already.