John Nagl and Nathaniel Fick, both of the Center for a New American Security, had an op-ed in last Sunday's NY Times. They're both former military officers, now big think-tank executives, and they decided to report on the Great Progress our armed forces are making in Afghanistan. Mind you, the Afghan government still sucks and the Afghan security forces are still ineffective, but our boys are aces!

One of us, Nathaniel, recently flew into Camp Leatherneck in a C-130 transport plane, which had to steer clear of fighter bombers stacked for tens of thousands of feet above the Sangin District of Helmand Province, in southwestern Afghanistan. Singly and in pairs, the jets swooped low to drop their bombs in support of Marine units advancing north through the Helmand River Valley.

Half of the violence in Afghanistan takes place in only 9 of its nearly 400 districts, with Sangin ranking among the very worst. Slowly but surely, even in Sangin, the Taliban are being driven from their sanctuaries as the coalition focuses on protecting the Afghan people in key population centers and hubs of economic activity, and along the roads that connect them. Once these areas are cleared, it will be possible to hold them with Afghan troops and a few American advisers — allowing the United States to thin its deployments over time.

A significant shift of high-tech intelligence resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, initiated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander, is also having benefits. The coalition led by the United States and NATO has been able to capture or kill far more Taliban leaders in nighttime raids than was possible in the past.

The United States certainly can’t kill its way to victory, as it learned in Vietnam and Iraq, but it can put enough pressure on many Taliban fighters to encourage them to switch their allegiance, depriving the enemy of support and giving the coalition more sources of useful intelligence.

Ahh... if you have jets dropping bombs on Taliban positions and had to surge US forces to 100,000 troops because NATO didn't want to grow its presence and Afghan forces aren't capable, you ARE in fact trying to kill your way to victory. I'm not going to dissect this op-ed, I'll refer you to Joshua Foust for that analysis, but I'll tell you what discouraged me about this pollyannish article. First, the two authors want us to be encouraged that after more than nine years of fierce combat in Afghanistan, we might - just might - be able to get down to 25,000 combat forces four years from now. If we're lucky and Karzai leaves office and a competent Afghan government takes his place.

Second, they use the opportunity to suggest that the counterinsurgency tactics are responsible for a shift in momentum that will allow the "Long War" to get shorter. There's been nothing new that I've seen that suggests anything other than bone-grinding attrition has been the overwhelming tactic here. As much as they cheer on the military operators, and I am sure that our military operators are skilled and efficient killers, the Taliban isn't giving up and the Afghan population isn't throwing its trust behind Karzai. It's a slog, an attrition-based battle with no end game. As TwS points out, "Tactical success shouldn’t be used as a predictor of strategic success."

But here's the bottom line. Let's assume Nagl and Fick are right, that everything clicks, that we're able to drop US combat presence in Afghanistan to 25,000 by 2014. So what? What exactly have we gained? What strategic interest has been achieved? So we cleared out one country of AQ (which, oh by the way, they left  years ago and operate out of Pakistan now - and Yemen and Somalia and other countries...). It's not as if Afghanistan is going to be a valued partner in the War on Terror. No, that country is going to patch its wounds and hope that it can achieve a living condition similar to Pakistan - if it tries real hard for about twenty years while sucking down billions of dollars in American financial aid. Great stuff.

But hey, I suppose Nagl and Fick are just supporting SecDef Gate's view on life, as misguided as that point of view is.

Iran's nuclear weapons, North Korea's ballistic missiles, and bioterrorism incidents will always be five years away from threatening the United States, no matter what year it is.

BTW, Happy Birthday to Ziggy Stardust, he turned 64 on Saturday.

A conservative-leaning friend of mine had to needle me when I was griping about current defense issues - he said, hey, be careful what you ask for, these are "your" progressives. I had to shoot back a response, in essence, saying no, these were not "my" progressives because I didn't see any progressives in the White House. I don't think I have to elaborate to anyone that the progressive movement is bitterly disappointed with the Obama administration and Congress.

"Progressives have grown ever more dissatisfied, and for good reason," Robert Borosage, the conference organizer, said at the start. "Our hopes or illusions were shattered: escalation in Afghanistan, retreat on Guantanamo, no movement on worker rights or comprehensive immigration reform, dithering on 'don't ask, don't tell,' reverses on choice, delay on climate change and new energy."

There's nothing so much as the Obama administration's willingness to retain former Bush administration officials that emphasizes this fact. Let's leave SecDef Bob Gates and FBI director Robert Mueller alone for now, and look at former Lt Gen James Clapper, nominated to be the next Director of National Intelligence. Now I don't really care that this administration keeps on pushing retired general/flag officers into public service, although others do (I think it's Obama's attempt to influence Republicans from blocking his nominations). I'm more disturbed by Clapper's former record on intelligence issues, notably when referencing Saddam's alleged WMD program in 2003.

The idea that Saddam hid his WMD stockpiles and programs by secretly shipping them to Syria has been popular for years among some of the most avid supporters of George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq. Nevertheless, lengthy and expensive investigations by the Iraq Survey Group, a special team set up by Bush to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, found only traces of them. The inquiry concluded that Saddam had largely destroyed his WMD stockpiles and production infrastructure years before the invasion, retaining only the ability to restart the program if it became possible. Experts affiliated with both the Republican and Democratic parties now say the Iraq Survey Group’s evidence shows overwhelmingly that Saddam’s WMD programs and stockpiles were eliminated well before the U.S. invasion. Claims that Iraqi WMDs might still be hidden in Syria are now regarded as no more than a fringe conspiracy theory.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials, requesting anonymity when discussing sensitive information, confirm to Declassified that Clapper supported the theory. One of the officials says Clapper was a fairly enthusiastic proponent of the idea, but three others say they don’t remember his being a bitter-end advocate of the notion; they suggest he probably abandoned it after the Iraq Survey Group reported its conclusions. One of the officials says Clapper was "not much of an ideologue."

Nevertheless, he apparently stuck with the theory for at least six months after the invasion. The Washington Times’s ace defense reporter, Bill Gertz, described Clapper in an Oct. 29, 2003, story as telling a group of defense journalists at a breakfast that spy-satellite images of vehicle traffic indicated that material and documents related to the WMD programs had been shipped to Syria. "Those below the senior leadership saw what was coming and I think they went to extraordinary lengths to dispose of the evidence," Clapper was quoted as saying.

I heard these rumors, never saw any evidence that supported movements of MWD materials and munitions to Syria. I'd like to think that Syria wouldn't be so stupid as to support this move, and if it had done so to benefit its own WMD program, well, that's just prudent politics. But the facts remain that Saddam's WMD program was not active at the time of the invasion, that he did not have a stockpile of munitions that he was preparing to give to terrorists, and that a preventive invasion was a really bad solution to that threat. So why keep Clapper in the administration? Has he repented? Does he accept the Iraq Survey Group's findings?

I'm quite enjoying Matt Yglesias's book Heads In the Sand, where he explains this inexplicable tendency of old-school Democrats to actually apply their energy and agenda in the same direction as right-wing conservatives, even though, time after time, we've seen this strategy backfire on them. This administration is showing the same tendencies that Yglesias points out, and it's damned frustrating. We deserve better than this. We campaigned for a progressive platform, and we didn't get the progressive positions that we wanted. We're nearly out of time to influence this administration to change for the better - if the Repubs win at the mid-terms, Obama will be forced to compromise even more to the right, and the progressive positions will just vanish in 2011-2012.

In another example about how Republicans cannot be trusted to responsibly address national security (or domestic security) issues, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Lieberman (R-at Heart) are threatening the Defense Department with subpoenas if it does not release documents that they requested through the Senate's homeland security committee.

"The painful fact is that 13 Americans died in the Fort Hood massacre," Lieberman said. "We owe it to them and their survivors and everyone else in our country to determine whether our government could have prevented their deaths -- and if so, why it did not -- so that we can make sure it does the next time."

Collins faulted administration aides for "an inexplicable determination to stalemate and slow-walk our investigation."

Appropriately, SecDef Bob Gates has told the two to go pound sand, since there are, in fact, a few other pressing defense issues on his agenda, and there is no story here.

Gates, speaking to reporters after attending a Caribbean security conference in Barbados, said the US government had no interest in hiding information from Congress but the legal case against Major Nidal Malik Hasan had to take priority.

“Anything that does not have any impact on that prosecution, we are more than willing to share,” Gates said. “But what’s most important is this prosecution. And we will co-operate with the committee in every way - with that single caveat, that whatever we provide doesn’t compromise the prosecution.”

Of all the possible homeland security or military issues that one could address, keeping the Major Hassan story alive shouldn't be the top priority of this Senate's committee. Why these two want to keep this non-story alive is beyond me. Neither is up for re-election prior to 2012 - that's a long way off - so the only other explanation (because I don't buy the idea of misplaced concerns about DOD or DoJ practices and policies) is to embarrass the Obama administration at the cost of screwing the government officials who are correctly addressing the situation right now.

Today, SecDef Bob Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen are expected to announce that the Defense Department will stop aggressively pursuing third-party charges of homosexuality against service members. They will also announce the formation of a group to study the issue for a year and (one would hope) to develop an implementation plan for eliminating the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

Gay rights groups are calling the hearing historic even as they question how quickly the administration is prepared to act. But Republicans are already signaling that they are not eager to take up the issue.

“In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat,” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC, “why would we want to get into this debate?”

Still, it is undeniable that a variety of 21st-century forces — a new generation in the military, a change in climate at the top levels of the Pentagon, pressure on the president from a critical interest group, even Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand’s anticipated Democratic primary battle in New York — converged to begin repeal of a 1993 law that has led to the discharge of more than 13,000 gay men and lesbians, including desperately needed Arabic translators.

As Mr. Gates told Mr. Obama last year, it was no longer a question of if the ban would be repealed, but when, said the meeting participant, who declined to be named to discuss internal White House deliberations.

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Polls now show that a majority of Americans support openly gay service — a majority did not in 1993 — but there have been no recent broad surveys of the 1.4 million active-duty personnel.

A 2008 census by The Military Times of predominantly Republican and largely older subscribers found that 58 percent opposed to efforts to repeal the policy; in 2006, a poll by Zogby International of 545 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that three-quarters were comfortable around gay service members.

I understand President Obama's desire to postpone this debate until the health care issue was resolved. Since that issue is now nearly concluded, it is certainly time to move toward closure on DADT. The Republican claims that the military would lose efficiencies or be uncomfortable around Teh Gays just doesn't hold water. But that shouldn't matter, since they are the minority party, right? I'm much more concerned that conservative Democrats will try to hold up the issue in fear of election year backlash. What we ought to see is the Senate Democrats placing a short paragraph in the FY 2012 National Defense Appropriations bill. That would seal the deal, but do they have the guts? Will the Dems in fact grow a spine this year? I guess we'll find out.

Also see these articles discussing the positions of Rep. Pat Murphy (D-PA), a former Army officer, and CPT Tim Hsia, an active duty infantry officer.

ginandtacos: 'Democrats-as-socialists' comments are particularly lame coming from someone like the CEO of Coca Cola. Dirt-cheap, subsidized corn sweeteners, anyone?

Scott Horton: Republican Gomorrah - Six Questions for Max Blumenthal

Pacific Views: Act in haste, repent at leisure

Danger Room: Inside Bob Gates' Overhaul of the Pentagon

Eschaton: Atrios has news...

Consortiumblog: Neocon judge's history of coverups

General (retired) John Shalikashvili released an op-ed in the Saturday Washington Post where he suggested that there was an alternative to waiting for SecDef Bob Gates to conduct a "study" prior to recommending to Congress that they repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. He thinks Congress should repeal the law immediately, but allow DOD to take its time to carefully develop how the military should develop the issue.

Repealing the law while avoiding action on a nondiscrimination statute will not please everyone. Proponents of ending unequal treatment of gay troops have insisted that an anti-discrimination statute replace the current law because they do not trust the military to move forward on its own and they fear that a future president or Congress might again impose a discriminatory policy.

It is true that without a mandate from Congress, the Pentagon would have the discretion to leave current regulations in place as it determines how best to implement repeal. There is, however, little cause to fear that the ban would remain indefinitely, and it is highly unlikely that a future administration or Congress would roll back equal treatment once the Pentagon adopts it. Although some wish to see equality written into law, the current political climate calls for reconsideration. This is why a repeal-only option has merit. Such a change would not impose a solution but, rather, the opposite: It would remove constraints on the military's ability to do its job. Congress should repeal the law, providing the secretary and the chairman with enough maneuvering room that, when the time is right, they can implement policies that end discrimination and maximize military readiness.

It's a reasonable position to take, but I don't think that either Congress or SecDef Gates will take it. Instead of taking the bold, honest approach to getting rid of an odious policy that has continued discrimination against talented men and women in the military, the administration and Congress will be more focused on the November elections. Now that health care and financial regulation are past, there is time to do this repeal, but I'm betting that they're going to rather continue debating domestic politics, like immigration reform, health care, and bank/oil/mining regulation, rather than national security issues. But it's good to have honest and open discussion on policy options from a retired Army general.

Matt Stoller a great assessment up of the elections, the netroots and Rummy's firing. Matt also goes into what impact Rahm actually didn't have. TNR also has a summary up and saying that the greatest impact came from the netroots (ht Mo from the comments).

Larry Johnson has some warnings on our possible new Secretary of Defense:

Before the media goes overboard extolling the virtues of Bob Gates as the replacement for Don Rumsfeld, it is important to look back at Gates' record and reputation. Gates has some "splaining" to do. The press has forgotten that Bob Gates, during his time at CIA, acquired a reputation for trying to tailor intelligence to satisfy political masters in the Reagan White House...read on

And that is the InstaPundit himself, Glen Reynolds joining in via webcam at last night's blogger party.

"Just saw them saying on CNN that 'Corruption' was the number one issue mentioned by voters in exit polls. If -- and it's a big "if" -- this is an accurate reflection I think the GOP will wish it had passed all those promised ethics reforms that it didn't deliver," says Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.