So by this way of thinking it is foolish for the Democrats to forge ahead. Much better, it goes, for them to abandon their efforts and start over, crafting something that is truly bipartisan.

But I think the true progressives within the Democrat party are thinking much farther ahead than the next few elections. They see a golden opportunity to permanently change the United States in a way that will work to their advantage. What the progressives aim to do is to fundamentally change the relationship of the American citizen to his or her government. They want to reduce us to dependence in a way never before done. And once they have done that they control the politics, because dependency breeds Democrat voters.

The American people may hate the changes in the short term, and they may even dislike them in the long term, but due to the nature of our government it will never be overturned.

If Republicans and conservatives think they can overturn whatever the Democrats pass they are kidding themselves. Reagan was never able to carry though on his promise to fold the Department of Education back into Health and Human Services (before Carter split off Education it had been the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). Newt Gingrich and his Congressional majority were never able to end funding for PBS and the arts. If neither of them could achieve these relatively minor things, what makes any of us think that we can overturn Obamacare?

Mark Steyn agrees:

Because it's worth it. Big time. I've been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally "conservative" parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (let's not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a "conservative"). The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless. ...

Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever expanding number of government jobs will be statists -- sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists.
...

A bigtime GOP consultant was on TV crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass Obamacare because it's so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November. Okay, then what? You'll roll it back -- like you've rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago? Like you've undone the federal Department of Education and of Energy and all the other nickel 'n' dime novelties of even a universally reviled one-term loser like Jimmy Carter? Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus: "Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?"

It's not. It's a very good bet, and one I'd take. Steyn explains why:

Look at it from the Dems' point of view. You pass Obamacare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health-care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier. That's a huge prize, and well worth a mid-term timeout.

Even if we push the Democrat return back from 2012 to 2014 or later, it makes no difference. The healthcare apparatus is still in place, and there is more dependency than ever. Democrats simply promise free ice cream for everyone, and the votes line up. Even if they lose, they still win.

Maj. Gen Wolff reports to Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., Deputy Commanding General for Operations. Jacoby reports to General Odierno, Commanding GeneralUnited States Forces - Iraq. Odierno reports to Gen. Petraeus, commanding general of CENTCOM. Petreaus reports to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

USD-C is headquartered by the 1st Armored Division, operating in the in the cities of Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad.

This and other videos can be seen at DODvClips. The Pentagon Channel also has videos and news stories, so visit it as well.

The transcript is at DefenseLink.

Several subjects were discussed in this briefing, the most important of which were:

1) The performance of Iraqi forces in the March 7 parliamentary elections
2) The continuing drawdown of U.S. forces
3) Whether U.S. forces were engaged in combat, or what exactly they do these days
4) A recent minor attack on a U.S. convoy.

All are important, but we'll concentrate on the drawdown of U.S. forces as that's what most on people's minds.

As Bryan said, I'm Major General Terry Wolff. I'm the commanding general of United States Division-Center. As many of you know, Multinational Division-Baghdad and Multinational Division-West were brought together in two separate transfers of authority, which occurred in January. And that created the organization we presently know today as United States Division-Center.

Our team is built around the 1st Armored Division headquarters out of Wiesbaden, Germany, and also the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, which is an AAB out of Al Anbar province.

In Baghdad, we've got the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which is a Stryker unit out of Fort Lewis, the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, which is organized as an AAB, and the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, another infantry brigade.

Additionally we've got an aviation brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 16th Engineer Brigade. Just as a point of reference, 1st of the 3rd AAB arrived in Iraq simultaneously with 1st Armored Division. But the remainder of these forces that I've previously mentioned have been on the ground for a number of months, before we arrived.

As you all know, Sunday's election was an historic event. The Iraqis in Al Anbar province and Baghdad were protected superbly by the Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqi people came out and voted in large numbers. In Al Anbar there were no high-profile attacks, no attacks on polling centers and no loss of life. In Baghdad, the ISF succeeded in preventing vehicle-borne IEDs and also suicide-vest attacks.

While there were a few incidents which produced casualties, and a number of noise-bottle bombs, the Iraqi security forces secured the population and provided a secure, credible election process. And so before I close and take a question or two or three, I'd emphasize that Sunday's election-day success didn't just happen. The ISF owns security responsibilities in Iraq. The battlespace is theirs. They're in charge. They set the conditions for the elections through their hard work in the months leading up to the election day, and it paid handsome dividends on Sunday.

The ISF task didn't begin on or end on Sunday, as I just mentioned. And since then, they've continued to provide security on a daily basis for the last couple of days. We know that the ISF has an important role to play in the future, and we look forward to continuing to partner with them.

And so with that, I'll take your questions, please.

I think most media accounts back this up.

There are perhaps three measures of how well a new democracy is doing

1) Whether elections are relatively free and fair, and held without violence or intimidation
2) How the victors act when they assume power
3) How the losers act, especially those in power who are turned out of office.

Iraq passed test #1, at least this time. Although there have been several elections, the jury is out on numbers two and three. That said, it's so far so good.

On to the Q & A:

Q General, it's Anne Flaherty, with Associated Press. As we await the election results, do you see any outcome that could change the pace of U.S. withdrawal, or should change the pace of U.S. withdrawal?

GEN. WOLFF: You know, at this point -- at this point, no. You know, we've been told, based on the president's announcement last year at -- during his Lejeune speech, that we -- that USFI would come down to 50,000 folks. And so that's what we believe will occur, and that's the -- that's the planning process we move forward with, to move to that number.

This first series of questions is from from Al Pessin of VOA, who asks whether our forces are involved in combat and the impact of the elections on plans for a drawdown.

The Iraq Casualties website has the details. Follow the link for the complete chart, but here is one of their graphs showing combat fatalities by year. The bars are unmarked, but they're 2003 to 2009. You can see the decline since the success of the surge.

Q General, it's Al Pessin from Voice of America. So do you have any of your troops actually involved in combat at this point?

GEN. WOLFF: Sure. We work with the Iraqis to help them train a number of different elements. And so -- let me give you an example. Many of these Iraqi brigades have what we call commando elements or strike platoons.

They're little -- they're platoons or companies, commando companies, that help them execute offensive operations. This is in addition to many of the soldiers they have out on checkpoints and doing that sort of duty.

And so when -- let's say a federal police unit goes out and executes a mission of this nature to go get a bad guy. There will usually be a U.S. partner element that will move and operate with them.

And so the answer is yes, we partner in that regard. But the person who's knocking on the door of the house that they're going into is Iraqi. It is a warranted operation, based on rules of evidence under the Iraqi system that have been brought forward, with a Article 4 warrant that has been issued by an Iraqi court.
...

Q So considering this picture that you painted for us, now that the election has passed, when do you anticipate beginning to draw down the forces in your AOR? And from what level now to approximately what level in August?

GEN. WOLFF: Sure. I won't talk about exact numbers, but what I can say is that -- you know, you've heard us talk about this as a responsible drawdown. Well, some of the responsible drawdown has already happened. I basically took the place of two division headquarters across two provinces. So responsible drawdown began with the arrival of the 1st Army Division assuming its role as the United States Division-Center. We've already had one of the brigade combat teams that were part of the United States Division-Center off-ramp and return to home station.

So in Baghdad province we're down to three brigade combat teams, as you -- as I commented. And now, Anbar, we're down to one; one -- now Anbar is end-stage. In Baghdad, we will eventually come down to one over time. And so the decision that will be made when to start that off-ramp is General Odierno's decision.

We'll skip the rest of the Q &A and move to Gen. Wolff's final comments:

GEN. WOLFF: Well, I would give you a couple of perspectives.

See, you know, you touched on responsible drawdown today. And there's a lot of work that has been ongoing with that. And it didn't just -- doesn't just start or stop with the end of the election process. And so you know, there's a lot of movement that's happened. We're positioning now to turn over a number of American JSSes to the Iraqis. We will also turn over some other bases to them.

It's a fairly comprehensive plan that we've been -- we've been working for a number of months, that our predecessors worked as well, that we continue to refine. And that's based on discussions we have with the Iraqi security forces. So responsible drawdown has been going on for a while around here. And it will continue to September and then beyond.

Secondly I would state that the environment out here is incredibly complex. And while casualty levels seem down, and we acknowledge that the Iraqi security forces did a bang-up job securing their population for the elections, I'd also tell you that we're asking an awful lot of these young American leaders and young American soldiers.
...

I'd also mention that the Iraqi security forces, again, have grown significantly. Some of you know I worked -- I worked helping train the ISF on my last rotation, in 2006 and '7. It was a -- it was an army of about 110,000. Well, it's grown to about double that. It was a police of barely 150,000; it's nearly triple that. And so the Iraqi security forces demonstrated on Sunday that they're up to the task.

If it were -- if it were a test, they'd pass with flying colors. And I'm pretty confident that they can continue to secure the government of Iraq and the Iraqi people. There's no doubt in my mind that they can do that exceptionally well.

An explanation, from the website:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family. It was in this tradition that a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration on November 20, 2009 at a press conference in Washington, DC. The 4,700-word declaration speaks in defense of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. It issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere firmly to their convictions in these three areas.

It will be easy for some to dismiss this out of hand as a propaganda piece of the far right, aimed at denying the civil liberties of gays, atheists, agnostics, and others. To those who would, bear with me for awhile.

The progressive view of history is that we are always moving forward, or at least should be, and are always improving our lot. All or most programs enacted in the past hundred and fifty years have improved society and everything is thus getting better. Jeff Bergner, writing in The Weekly Standard, calls this "The Narrative:"

The story runs like this. America was founded on the ideal of equality, though that ideal at first was barely put into practice. The story of America is one of progress toward the fulfillment of the ideal of equality. The end of slavery and the achievement of women's suffrage are landmarks in this story. All fair enough. So is--less plausibly--the federal income tax, originally established to fund the government but later used to redistribute wealth and tax advantages among Americans. Then came the many programs of direct payments to individuals, the so-called entitlements, beginning with Social Security and extending to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, aid to dependent children, farm subsidies, and myriad others. And today the health care reform bill before Congress takes its place in America's advance toward equality. Each and every policy that aims to level distinctions between Americans has found its place within The Narrative.

As Bergner says, surely many things labeled as reforms have improved out lot. The end of slavery, universal suffrage, and the civil rights revolution stand out. I've have had conversations with many older conservative women who have no hesitation in telling stories of how they could not get jobs despite having advanced degrees in areas like law and business. Again, all fair enough.

But we're not getting better as a society everywhere, and in some areas are moving backwards. I'm not going to run through the numbers, but I think we should be pretty clear that things like the divorce rate and single parenthood are at all time highs. We're forever hearing that political discussion is meaner and worse than ever. The Playboy culture is upon us, and what you see in the Victoria's Secret window is unimaginable even a generation ago. Who can say that the Bratz series of dolls are really good role-models for girls? The sexualization of our children accelerates in a whole series of areas, from dress to books to what you see on TV shows and in the movies.

I am not arguing for a return to some "golden era" for there never was one. Go back fifty years and all you are doing is trading one sin for another, lack of civil rights for more modesty in dress, for example. No, what I am doing is rejecting the progressive view of The Narrative and the idea that such things as LBJ's Great Society programs were an unmitigated good. So that yes, I am happy that some of the social restrictions of the bad old days are gone, but am unhappy that it has led to the "hook up culture."

The Authors of The Declaration

Robert George Professor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

Timothy George
Professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

Chuck Colson
Founder, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, VA)

A quick look at list of religious leaders who have signed makes me think it's pretty ecumenical, though I'm no expert.

What is The Declaration All About?

From the summary page

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are

(1) the sanctity of human life,
(2) the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and
(3) the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from
powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their
defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are
brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this
commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the
crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Sanctity of Life

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

The authors here are not only concerned with abortion, but with euthanasia, research using human embryos, so-called "therapeutic cloning," as well as international issues such as "ethnic cleansing," neglect of children, the exploitation of workers, the sexual trafficking of girls, and other issues.

Pope John Paul II described abortion as "the culture of death," but the term also applies to those who casually dismiss those who are concerned about human embryo research and "therapeutic cloning" as religious nuts. It is the casual acceptance of these trends, or the rationalization of them, that disturbs the authors.

The chief objection to this "culture of death is that it promotes "the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable." It all started with abortion, and now continues into other areas. How long before we leganize euthanasia as they have done in The Netherlands? How can this possibly be good?

Critics often call conservatives hypocrites for failing to oppose the death penalty, to which I say "I'll trade you abortion for the death penalty." Given that there are 1.37 million abortions a year and approximately 52 executions, this is a trade I'll gladly make.

Dignity of Marriage

The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24

This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33

If a man can marry another man, and a woman another woman, why can't a man marry 600 other men?

Once you remove traditional and/or religious guidelines, then marriage and all other social institutions become subject to the whims of politicians and judges, who will respond to whatever pressure group screams the loudest.

The problem goes well beyond "gay marriage." As the authors point out, "perhaps the most telling--and alarming--indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent." Most social pathologies, among them poverty, delinquency, drug abuse, crime, and incarceration, can be directly tied to single parenthood.

Just because the straight population, Christian or not, can't keep it's act together is no reason to compound the problem. The authors point out that "the impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture." Too many today are morally confused, lacking clear guidelines, and do not understand the reasons and societal benefits of traditional marriage.

The idea that we could allow same-sex marriage and everyone else would continue on their merry way is not tenable. The proponents of same-sex marriage want nothing less than to force its acceptance in society. They want it taught as perfectly normal in our schools and to eliminate discussion of the subject in the marketplace of ideas, and indeed to end the tax-exempt status of any church who dares object to the new regime.

Religious Liberty

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21

At first glance this may not seem to be a problem, as there is no Roe v Church seeking to overturn the First Amendment. But we see a weakening of religious liberty in other, less obvious, ways taking place.

There is a movement afoot to end conscience clauses for medical personnel in hospitals where abortions are performed. Some even want to force pro-life hospitals to perform abortions or lose their funding and/or licenses. Ditto for same-sex marriage; institutions and businesses will be forced to accept such "marriages" or face punitive legal action.

The Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority can be found in Hebrews 13:17, among other places:

Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

So indeed we are generally prohibited from subverting our government (assuming it is not Nazi or communist or some such, then it gets more complicated).

But you don't have to go far to find stories justifying civil disobedience in the Bible either. There are many, but the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3 comes to mind. They refused to pray to the golden image built by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and were thrown into the fiery furnace as a result. They, of course, were saved by God, but the point is that one may refuse to obey wrong laws as long as one is willing to pay the price.

Did I Sign It?

Of course I signed it. No the document does not discuss every injustice in the United States. The wider one casts that net, however, the more disagreement you'll generate. Best to keep it short and simple.

So I agree with the principles of the document, and think it a worthy basis for action and belief.

...I think it fits with the interesting strategy that McChrystal has because the objective is not the killing of the Taliban. The objective is to gain the confidence of the civilians.

If you announce in advance you will do Kandahar, the capital [of the Taliban], the prize here, you hope that the small bands of the enemy roaming around will think twice about hanging around and facing the U.S. Marines, because they will lose.

And you are doing is appealing to the less fanatical and less ideological and the less suicidal enemy who will sneak around and join the population and give up the fight and become civilians. And we aren't against that.

The idea is once they get integrated in society, that's OK. You don't want a victory where you have to surrender on the battleship Missouri. What you want is to win the confidence of the population.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad when I read this. I didn't see the video, but Krauthammer seems to think this is some sort of a unique strategy. If so, I'm disappointed, because protecting the population as opposed to simply hunting and killing insurgents was the entire strategic basis of the surge in Iraq. I guess that Charles hasn't been reading The Redhunter.

I've gone over this a kazillion times on Redhunter, but once more can't hurt. Maybe there's a new reader who cares about this stuff.

The authors of the manual examined the history of insurgency over the past hundred years or so to determine their nature and what strategies worked and which failed. The team included civilians as well as military personnel.

The essence of the new strategy was that raiding from remote bases does not work. Troops must get off their big bases and live among the people. Rather than concentrate on hunting and killing insurgents, troops should focus on protecting the population. There were three basic phases: Clear - Hold - Build.

Small Wars Journal explains it best, and quotes from the section of the manual written by Lt. Col. (Dr) David Kilcullen:

Counterinsurgency: FM 3024 / MCWP 3.33.5 defines the true meaning of the phrase hearts and minds as the two components in building trusted networks in the conduct of COIN operations:

"Hearts" means persuading people that their best interests are served by COIN success. "Minds" means convincing them that the force can protect them and that resisting it is pointless. Note that neither concerns whether people like Soldiers and Marines. Calculated self-interest, not emotion, is what counts. Over time, successful trusted networks grow like roots into the populace. They displace enemy networks, which forces enemies into the open, letting military forces seize the initiative and destroy the insurgents.

I think Dr. David Kilcullen defined hearts and minds as two components of COIN operations quite nicely during a COIN seminar at Quantico, Virginia, several weeks ago.

In addressing the reality of hearts and minds Kilcullen explained how the following 1952 statement by General Sir Gerald Templer, Director of Operations and High Commissioner for Malaya, has been misinterpreted:

"The answer lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the Malayan People"

General Templer did not mean (or say) that we must "be nice to the population" or make them like us. What he meant, and his subsequent actions played out, was that success in COIN rests on the popular perception and this perception has an emotive ("hearts") component and a cognitive ("minds") component.

Kilculen continued - what is essential here is making the population choose. The gratitude theory - "be nice to the people, meet their needs and they will feel grateful and stop supporting the insurgents" - does not work. The enemy simply intimidates the population when COIN forces / government are not present resulting in lip-service as the population sees COIN forces / government as weak and easily manipulated. In time, this leads to hatred of COIN forces / government by the population. On the other hand, the choice theory - "enable (persuade, coerce, co-opt) the population to make an irrevocable choice to support COIN forces / government usually works better. The population typically desires to "sit on the fence" and not commit to supporting any side in an insurgency / COIN environment. COIN forces / government need to get the population off that fence and keep them there. This requires persuading the population, then protecting them, where they live. While this cannot be done everywhere, it must be done where it politically counts.

Go to the right sidebar on this blog, and under "Categories" you'll see some for Iraq. Choose Iraq II 2007 - 2008 and scroll away. Time and again you'll come across our commanders saying that the key to victory was living among the people so that we can protect them.

Or you can watch Gen Petraus give the definitive speech on the matter, or just read my summary of it at my October 12, 2008 post: Gen Petraeus' Speech on Iraq - How We Did It .

Or if you want to hear it from the colonels who commanded the brigades themselves read

Iraq Briefing - 04 Feb 2008 - "We do not drive or commute to work"
Iraq Briefing - 22 Feb 2008 - "We are Living with the Population"
Iraq Briefing - 14 April 2008 - "From Clear to Hold and Build"
Iraq Briefing - 09 June 2008 - Job Creation to Defeat the Insurgency
Iraq Briefing - 04 August 2008 - Achieving Durable Security

Did it work? Even the leftist rag Newsweek, something I usually pay absolutely no attention to but saw at my gym just this evening, says so. In an article titled "Rebirth of a Nation: Something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq. It may not be 'mission accomplished'--but it's a start" they basically admit that in the end Bush's surge strategy worked.

Yes yes, I know, we're not out of the woods there yet. There are dangers galore. Ditto that of the United States until the civil rights movement of fifty years ago, if you want to play that game. We won, the insurgents and naysayers lost, and we need to apply those lessons to Afghanistan and wherever else we need to fight.

Like any other genre, some Christian talk radio is good and some is bad. Spare me the fire and brimstone. Bring on insightful, intellectual, and intelligent commentary. Of the latter, Christian Research Institute Chairman Hank Hanegraaff is one of the best. I've listened to him long enough to know that he didn't earn the moniker "the bible answer man" by accident. Check your local radio listings for availability.

Hanegraaff has published a number of works, and one day I'll buy more of them. My time for reading being somewhat small, I decided to start with one of his smaller ones, Whose Ethics? Whose Morals? The Best of the Christian Research Journal. At 95 pages, it's not a long read.

The book is a collection of short essays; one by Hanegraaff, and 5 by other authors. My conclusion; there are a few good sections, but in general it was a letdown. Partially this is just me, because any reader of this blog knows that while I am pro-life, I don't spend much time on the subject. Ditto with other hot-button social issues such as cloning and stem cell research. If the details of these subjects interest you, you'll probably find the book more useful than I did.

The best essay is "Dispelling False Notions of the First Amendment: The Falsity, Futility, and Folly of Separating Morality from the Law" by Michael Bauman. There are those who argue that "you can't legislate morality," which is usually a prelude to "keep religion out of government/the/law etc." Bauman presents a convincing case that all law is ultimately based on moral and ethical judgments.

For example, one can justify environmental laws on pragmatic grounds by saying that clean air or water benefits us all. But the simple idea that more people leading healthy lives is itself a moral judgment. Speed limits can be justified on pragmatic grounds by saying that they save lives and we benefit economically and that "cleaning up" wrecks is expensive. Again, the idea that saving lives is good and that cost is a factor is itself a moral judgment. It is therefore foolish to think that law can be made on a strictly pragmatic basis.

Right now we are in a stage whereby vice-type laws are being removed, and more and more moral prohibitions relaxed. A quick look at the supermarket magazines and the cover of Cosmopolitan, or the window of you local Victoria's Secret, makes the point. And that's before turning on the TV for the evening sitcoms. Even the most cursory look at all of the social indicators; divorce rate, single parenthood, etc show a downward trend in the past 40 years, and every serious study out there shows these conditions lead to poverty. The cause-and-effect / chicken-and-egg is complicated, but if "pragmatism" was the basis for our law we'd make divorce and single-parenthood illegal. Neither I nor Bauman are saying these things should be illegal, just pointing out that pragmatism isn't the basis for our legal system.

More, vice-laws have more effect than many people want to admit. Prohibition didn't stop drinking but even after it ended, alcohol consumption was considerably less than before it was enacted. Before prohibition the average American drank 3 gallons of alcohol per year. After it was lifted it was at 1 gallon for the next 10 years, and took 40 years to return to pre-prohibition levels.

Obviously not all sins can or should be legislated, and Bauman makes this explicitly clear.

I don't want to say there is a "worst" essay, but unless you're interested in reading about the ethics of abortion in excruciating detail, you'll find the two essays on abortion tedious. The authors take on seemingly every imaginable "pro-choice" argument, including many I'd never heard of before. They not only take you through the biology of conception and pregnancy step-by-step, but address the very issue of "what does it mean to be human?" I'll admit that in a way it is interesting and indeed important, but it's just not my personal hot-button topic.

Before too long, though, we as a society are going to have to face all the hard questions about "what it means to be human" that we can now see but are just over the horizon. The debate over embryonic v adult cell research is all the rage now, but other issues will be at the forefront soon. Before too many years human cloning will not only be possible but cheaper and easier. Even the Brave New World scenario whereby babies are "grown" test-tubesin baby-factories is not too far off as our technology advances. We'll have to answer the question; just because something is technically possible, do we want to do it? Should these things be legal, illegal, or regulated? These questions are not my cup of tea, but in the end I'll be affected by them as much as anyone.

This and other videos can be seen at DODvClips. The Pentagon Channel also has videos and news stories, so visit it as well.

The transcript is at DefenseLink.

First, an excerpt from Gen Nicholson's opening statement, then on with the Q & A from the assembled journalists:

RC (Regional Command) South, my higher headquarters, is working Op Moshtarak in two different AOs (Area of Operations). Really one is the Task Force Helmand, the British AO, in Nad Ali. And within Task Force Helmand, you had Afghans, of course, Brits, Danes and Estonians.

And then the port that we'll talk about tonight was in southern Nad Ali district or what we better know as Marja, where we had Task Force Leatherneck. Again we had Afghan, Marine, Navy of course and an Army Stryker Battalion....

What we wanted to accomplish very quickly was to go big, strong and fast, get into the center of Marja, occupy the spine of Marja if you will, and start clearing out. We were able to insert all of our heliborne forces without incident, and at first light -- we wanted to wait till first light to begin moving our ground forces in. We were prepared to breach at several different sites.

...we were able to move in relatively unencumbered. So we got about 4,000 Marines, Afghans and soldiers into Marja relatively quickly.

...within Marja today, we have about 2,500 U.S. Marines and about 1,500 Afghan soldiers. In addition, we have about 600 ANCOP, or National Police....

Marines don't search any of the homes. In an area this large, when you decide you've got to search a home, the guys going in are going to be Afghan soldiers....

And the other piece I would add is, when we did Operation Khanjar in July, we had -- for every Afghan soldier we had about 10 Marines. So for this operation, Moshtarak, I think it's almost a 2-to-1 ratio, maybe a little less than that, but -- you know, maybe closer to 3-to- 1, but the fact of the matter is, it's a tremendous improvement in not only the numbers but in the capability of the force that we have....

We've got a very skeptical population here, though. And I think, unlike some of the other areas that we've been in that were generally glad to see us but were always wondering if we would stay, the population here is concerned about what we're going to be able to do for them....

"wondering if we would stay" - That indeed is the crux of the matter. As we finally learned in Iraq, raiding does not work. When up against an insurgency you cannot go in, kill the bad guys, leave, and expect things to remain stable.

In a nutshell, the path to victory is Clear - Hold - Build. Unless you have enough troops and the gumption to Hold, you cannot Build. And unless you can Build, you do not give the populace a reason to help you resist the insurgents. If you have the populace on your side you stand a chance of winning, but without them all is lost.

I've only time for one exchange. it's a strange story, but actually provides a lot of insight into how insurgencies can be defeated.

Q General, it's Craig Whitlock with The Washington Post. You mentioned that the population there in Marja has been standoffish and skeptical. To what degree is that because they feel let down in the past by the Afghan government? And to what degree is it because maybe they're broadly supportive of the Taliban and their beliefs and goals?

GEN. NICHOLSON: Yeah, I had a great shura the other day. I was at City Market, I think on day five or six, and there were 40 or 50 elders that showed up. And they were one of the first guys to make any kind of appearance, because everyone had pretty well been locked down in their houses.

But in the middle of the shura this fellow stood up -- and this was reported somewhere, but an individual stood up and said -- he pointed at the Americans and said, "Hey, I like the Americans. The Americans built Marja. And I trust the Americans." And then he pointed to some Afghan leaders and said, "But I don't trust you, because in the past, you know, you've represented a failed and corrupt government." You know, my words, not his, but essentially that was the theme.

And then he said, "I'm a Taliban. I'm a Taliban leader. And we're all Taliban here."

And then he said -- the amazing thing was, he pointed at the Afghan leader and said, "I'm going to give you a chance. And you have a limited amount of time to prove to me that you're not the old government." Because I think one of the great talking points right now of the new Afghan government that's coming into Marja is, hey, we're not the guys from three, four years ago. We're different. And you need to give us your shot, you need to give us your chance to earn your trust.

So I think that's a positive. But that's why I'm so very impatient that we've got to get in here and we've got to start demonstrating and earning that trust.

A Taliban who supports Americans. How about that?

The lesson is that not all Taliban are hard-core Jihadists. Those who are, we must kill or take prisoner. But many are insurgents-of-opportunity. They can be co-opted and brought over to our side. This is what seems to be happening at this shura. May it continue.

Previous on Operation Moshtarak

Afghanistan Briefing - 18 February 2010 - Operation Moshtarak Update

Operation Moshtarak: Kinetic Operations in Afghanistan Begin Anew

China, Iran Creating 'No-Go' Zones to Thwart U.S. Military Power
by David Woods
Politics Daily

The United States, Pentagon strategists say, is quickly losing its ability to barge in without permission. Potential target countries and even some lukewarm allies are figuring out ingenious ways to blunt American power without trying to meet it head-on, using a combination of high-tech and low-tech jujitsu....

At the same time, U.S. naval and air forces have been shrinking under the weight of ever more expensive hardware. It's no longer the case that the United States can overwhelm clever defenses with sheer numbers.

As Defense Secretary Robert Gates summed up the problem this month, countries in places where the United States has strategic interests -- including the Persian Gulf and the Pacific -- are building "sophisticated, new technologies to deny our forces access to the global commons of sea, air, space and cyberspace.''

Those innocuous words spell trouble. While the U.S. military and strategy community is focused on Afghanistan and the fight in Marja, others - Iran and China, to name two - are chipping away at America's access to the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf and the increasingly critical extraterrestrial realms.

"This era of U.S. military dominance is waning at an increasing and alarming rate,'' Andrew Krepinevich, a West Point-educated officer and former senior Pentagon strategist, writes in a new report. "With the spread of advanced military technologies and their exploitation by other militaries, especially China's People's Liberation Army and to a far lesser extent Iran's military and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the U.S. military's ability to preserve military access to two key areas of vital interest, the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf, is being increasingly challenged.''

There seems to be a myth out there that because the U.S. is the U.S. we will automatically win any high-tech war. I call it the "Top Gun Syndrome," and while Hollywood is maybe partially to blame they're just rehashing what they saw in the Gulf War.

Due to other pressures I only have time for the briefest of comments. I also don't have time to set up a bunch of links, and so to a large extent will be going off of my general knowledge of the subject and my previous posts. Lets start with this:

The Air War Over Vietnam

Much to our surprise, in the 1964-68 period we only achieved a 2-1 ratio over the NVA, and perhaps only 1-1 against their premier fighter, the MiG-21. This greatly disturbed us because if we could only do this well against the NVA, we'd surely do much worse against the Russians.

There were two reasons we did so poorly; one, our pilots had lost the art of dogfighting. We assumed that most fights would be at long to medium range with missiles. When we did dogfight, the practice was Americans fighting Americans; i.e. similar aircraft with pilots using the same tactics against each other. The second reason was missile reliability, which stank.

During the bombing halt after 1968, we corrected all of the problems. We formed Top Gun for the Navy and Red Flag for the Air Force, and got our missiles to work. When we went back north again in 1972-73 we shot them down at the rate of 13-1, which was more like what we had achieved in Korea.

Old Hardware

Our Nimitz class carriers are based on a 40 year old design, and suffer lack of electrical power production. Nuclear reactors are not magical devices, and are limited in the amount of electricity they can produce. They simply don't have the capacity to generate power for all the modern computers and such we'd like to put aboard but can't. The first Gerald R Ford class won't hit the water until 2015. Right now we've only got 10 Nimitz class and the Enterprise, which was itself launched in 1960 and suffers more problems than the Nimitz. This is the fewest number we've had since before World War II.

More, carriers are only as good as the aircraft on board. The F-18 Hornet first flew in 1978, and it's upgraded sister the F-18 Super Hornet in 1995. The latter is a nice upgrade, but only an upgrade and not really a new design. As we all know the F-18 has a range problem and you can only upgrade an old airframe so much.

The replacement is the F-35 Lightning II, which is in the pipeline, but there are two issues there. One, it was supposed to be backed up by the more capable F-22 Raptor, but Obama stopped production of the Raptor to 187 aircraft, limiting it's availability. Two, the F-35 program is suffering the usual cost-overruns that seem endemic to any program, government or otherwise.

Spending is Down

No time to rehash what I've written, so follow the links to these previous posts:

Obama to Cut Military Spending to Pre - 9/11 Levels

and especially

U.S. Military Spending Is Not Starving Domestic Programs

Not Blaming Obama

The truth is that George HW Bush cut back too much when he was president, Clinton didn't reverse this trend, and W ramped up domestic spending and listened too much to Don Rumsfeld. The history here is bipartisan.

That said, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid domestic spending agenda is so insane that it puts us farther away than ever from being able to rebuild our military.

So Who Cares?

The short version is that we are a democracy that mostly does good in the world and Iran and China are not. Our allies in Europe, Japan, Australia, and Taiwan are also democracies that mostly do good in the world. No that doesn't give us the right to do whatever we want, but the world would be a better place with Western military hegemony in all parts of the world.

An FDR lesson Obama missed
by Wesley Pruden
The Washington Times

Barack Obama is trying to be the new FDR before the concrete settles around his image as the new Jimmy Carter. History will ultimately decide, but last week's celebrated health care summit made him look more like Mr. Jimmy than FDR.

The president was full of self-righteous talk, mostly about himself, and he twice felt it necessary to remind everyone that he's the president, recalling Richard Nixon's bizarre reassurance that he was not a crook. Some things are self-evident, and if they're not, such things are usually not true. We can stipulate that, like it or not, he's the president.

The Democrats relished the opportunity to portray the Republicans as the wrinkled party of "no," a crabby relic of the 20th century, devoid of anything that anybody could want, and Barack Obama's low-church eloquence would melt skepticism like butter on warm toast. But it didn't happen. Setting out the idea of a plain and simple alternative to Obamacare -- smaller measures to reform, taken step by step -- the Republicans sounded like the party of common sense, purveyors of the kind of kitchen-table solution that would work a lot better than an elaborate welfare-state scheme.

The president was in his favorite role, the long-winded professor trying hard to be patient with half-bright students who hadn't done their homework. Like most liberals, he suffers from a severe occupational hazard. Anyone who disagrees with him must be dumb, unlettered and redneck crazy. If Lamar Alexander, John McCain and Eric Cantor had only gone to the right Ivy League university they could understand the prescription for what's good for them. It's a fatal mindset that afflicts the cult. Jonathan Chait of New Republic put it plainly in a revealing blog post: "President Obama is so much smarter and a better communicator than members of Congress in either party. The contrast, side by side, is almost ridiculous."

The contrast was so stark that he could only liken the professor's summit seminar to basketball, our least cerebral sport, where oversized men in gaudy underwear run up and down a court to stuff a ball down a hole. The president is "treating [Republicans] really nice, letting his teammates take shots and allowing the other team to try to score. 'Nice try, Timmy, you almost got it in.' But after a couple minutes I want him to just grab the ball and dunk on these clowns already."

No one would have confused FDR -- or Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan -- with somebody shooting hoops on a schoolyard. Nor would anyone have confused one of those presidents with a professor showing off his mastery of detail and trivia by presiding over a congressional seminar. Mr. Obama should remind himself that he's the president, not a professor.

The president who would be FDR has squandered much of his authority and mystique in pursuit of something the people clearly don't want. The more he pursues it the more the people don't want it. He has yet to understand any of the parts of "no." He is learning too late, if he is learning at all, that too much of a good thing is too much. The powerful hold a president can have on the public is weakened by too much visibility. "The public psychology," FDR once wrote to a friend, "cannot be attuned for long periods of time to a constant repetition of the highest note on the scale."

Mr. Obama's profligate use of the highest note on the scale follows the example of his immediate predecessors, and it may be that the presidential mystique, with its power to accomplish a president's aims, was gravely wounded by the invention of the jet airplane. Air Force One is not only an impressive presidential icon, it makes every congressional district convenient to visit, and presidents are tempted to use it ever more frequently. In his 15 years in the White House, FDR, who preferred trains and was the first president to fly, never got around to visiting all the states.

A visit by a president meant something. Now it's often a hindrance and a distraction. Last week, Mr. Obama should have stood in bed. That may be the ultimate lesson from his great health care summit.

Clinton: Political fights hurt U.S. image: Wants world to see 'unity and strength'
The Washington Times
By Nicholas Kralev

President Obama's diminished political power as a result of fights between the White House and Congress has damaged both his and the country's image abroad, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

Even as she thanked Congress for its bipartisan support for many of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals, Mrs. Clinton said during two Senate committee hearings that recent bickering on domestic issues concerns her and that she hopes "we can figure out a better way to address it."

We hear this line often from Democrats these days. It's a lot of nonsense, and here's why:

And this from the party whose entire leadership attended the opening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11

The liberals resort to this tactic all the time when they have trouble getting their agenda enacted.

George Will nailed it when he said that

I don't know quite what his complaint is, but, Terry, with metronomic regularity, we go through these moments in Washington where we complain about the government being broken. These moments have one thing in common: The Left is having trouble enacting its agenda. No one when George W. Bush had trouble reforming Social Security said, "Oh, that's terrible - the government's broken."

There's another reason too; those who call for "unity" think that things alike healthcare are a giant math problem, and if only we can get enough experts in the same room together we can solve it. This is false, because it presumes that everyone agrees on the fundamentals.

But we don't. What you have is one side that thinks that government should guarantee health insurance coverage for everyone, and the other thinks that it's primarily the individual's responsibility.

As a conservative, I am not interested in some compromise that will inevitably result in a slow but sure incremental path toward single-payer, or more and more government involvement. History decisively shows that once a program is put into place it grows and grows and benefits, and thus taxes, go nowhere but up.

Obama and other progressives want to set the overall structure of the healthcare bill and throw Republicans a few bones, letting us tweak a percentage here and there or a small amendment or two. This is unacceptable.

The bottom line is there are going to be political differences and fights because we disagree on the fundamentals. Get used to it. And anyway, my reading of history shows that it is false and silly to think that the disagreements are worse today than they were in the past. The best thing is to try and convince the public you are right, and if you win don't push too much too fast or act arrogant in power. Be responsible to the people and implement your agenda one step at a time.

But for today we'll have to listen to Hillary and the liberals complain. Just don't take them seriously.

Obama tops Bush at ducking reporters
The Washington Times
February 22, 2010
by Joseph Curl

President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor's record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

President George W. Bush's longest stretch between prime-time, nationally televised press conferences was 214 days, from April 4 to Nov. 4, 2004. Mr. Obama tops that record on Monday, going 215 days - stretching back to July 22, according to records kept by CBS Radio's veteran reporter Mark Knoller.

The president has seemingly shunned formal, prime-time sessions since his last disastrous presser, when he said police in Cambridge, Mass., "acted stupidly" by arresting a Harvard professor who broke into a home that turned out to be his own. The off-the-cuff comment took over the news cycle for a week, overshadowing his push for health care reform, and culminated in a White House "Beer Summit," where the president hosted white police officer James Crowley and the black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

"At his last big press conference in July, he lost control of the message with his response to the Gates question, and then returns six months later with an unannounced, five-question avail in the briefing room - on a snow day. Was it something we said?"

Earlier this month, the president did field a few questions from reporters in a "mini-presser." He dropped by the White House briefing room unannounced at midday just after Washington's second snowstorm, right when the daily briefing by the press secretary was to occur. The "press availability" lasted only 33 minutes and encompassed questions from just five reporters - plus one after Mr. Obama tried to head for the door.

In contrast, a typical White House press conference is usually announced well in advance and takes place in the far more formal White House East Room. The prime-time sessions - carried live by all TV networks - last at least an hour and include questions from 12 to 15 reporters, sometimes more.

"I don't count that five-question, surprise 'avail,' as a presser," Miss Mason said.

Still, Mr. Obama has held plenty of tightly controlled sessions with reporters. He has given 66 interviews since July 22 - including two that day, according to Mr. Knoller's records. But that doesn't satisfy White House veterans.

"The administration will point you to all the interviews he does, but that is all about control. We are naturally at cross-purposes with him, because he wants to come out with his talking points and the press wants to knock him off those talking points - so the result is he just doesn't come around anymore," Miss Mason said.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama tops his predecessor in total output. He has given 43 press conferences of various degrees, six of which were solo White House sessions, Mr. Knoller said. During the same period, Mr. Bush gave 24 press conferences, of which four were formal, solo White House sessions.

So since the last one didn't go as he wanted it to he's not giving any more? This Administration has a penchant not only for insisting it control the message but for acting like children when they can't. Remember how they threw those reporters off the campaign airplane? They ones they tossed worked for newspapers whose editorial boards had endorsed McCain: The Dallas Moring News, The New York Post and The Washington Times. This was said to be coincidence, but I doubt it.

Anyway, it is one thing for Obama to go after Fox News. The rest of the media couldn't care less about that. But avoiding full-fledged press briefings... that could be dangerous. Most members of the media may love him, and let him get away with things that would sink a conservative, but they also don't like being "dissed." Obama's honeymoon with the media will be longer than most, but even they have their limits with him. And I think if Obama keeps this up he's going to find that out the hard way.

Does that mean the public has largely conceded that we've won? In part, I think.

There have not been any briefings lately on The Pentagon Channel or DODvClips, and I'm not entirely sure why. Obviously there is not as much fighting in Iraq as there was a year ago, but I wonder if a decision was taken at a higher level to not do as many as they used to. This is pure speculation, of course.

Fortunately our commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, accepted Dr. Kimberly Kagan's invitation to discuss the future of Iraq at a forum she held on February 16.

The entire interview and Q & A is over an hour, and videos and the complete transcript can be found at the Institute for the Study of War website here.

General Odierno was the #2 man in Iraq during the "surge" of 2007-8, and earned a we'll deserved reputation as the "Patton of Counterinsurgency". The analogy is this; Odierno was to Petraeus what Patton was to Eisenhower. Patton executed Ike's strategy, ditto for Odierno.

Kimberly Kagan's husband, Frederick Kagan, has been accurately described as "the intellectual author of the surge." It was him and retired General Jack Keane (who introduces them in the first video) who first convinced President Bush to change course. Kimberly is founder and President of the Institute for the Study of War.

Between the two Kagans they are probably the two smartest military theorists on the planet. Those who follow this blog know that I have quoted both of them often.

Here is the first part of the interview, with the others below the fold:

DR. KAGAN: ... honestly, General Odierno, I can't -- I can't think of a more critical moment to have you here in Washington. We're three weeks before Iraq's second and quite dramatic election for its new Parliament and therefore for its new prime minister and I think it's a critical time to be studying Iraq, to be thinking about Iraq's future and what really lies ahead.

And so my first question to you is, is Iraq on a path to political success?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, I think -- I tell everyone that I think success and victory and all those kinds of things we won't know till three to five to 10 years from now, but I think we're still moving along the path that we have an opportunity in Iraq today that we might never get again in our lifetimes.

We have -- we are involved with the government. We have a relationship with the Government of Iraq that gives us an opportunity to develop a democratic Iraq that has a long-term partnership with the United States and I don't know if we'll have that opportunity again.

So I think it's important that we understand we have an opportunity today and that we have to take advantage of that opportunity.

We have gotten through many different steps forward that I think have gone better than expected. The implementation of the Security Agreement in 2009, I think everyone was nervous about it. I was a bit nervous about it as we went through it, but I would argue it's been a success.
...

DR. KAGAN: -- politics?

GENERAL ODIERNO: -- lots of theories and everybody would have their own theory on this, but it's clear that, you know, there are -- there are many countries who have -- who have a lot at stake, depending on how Iraq turns out. Some of them -- I'm not going to name specific names, but some (nations) don't really want the democratic process to succeed because of the pressure it might put on their own government.

We have others who want to have a lot of influence over Iraq for many reasons: for the protection of their own nation, for the fact that they believe that they would like to see a weak government that they can control so they can better protect their borders and in many ways so they can control Iraq's development and they don't become a challenger to them in the future as a state on the rise.

So I think it's a combination of all those things. So you have these different agendas, some coming from Sunni Arab countries, some coming from -- from Persian Shi'a Arab countries who are -- who are trying to drive the elections a certain way, and so what we're seeing in the beginning is this sectarian divide.

What we want is we want it to come back together and be about Iraq, not about these other regional countries. It needs to be about Iraq.
...

QUESTION: Viola Gienger from Bloomberg News. You mentioned earlier on that this is an opportunity for the U.S. to be engaged and an opportunity that we may never get again. You seem to be suggesting do you think we are engaged? Do you think the U.S. is engaged as much as it should be at this point, or is there more to be done?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Yeah, I do. I mean, it's a very yeah, thanks. I mean, it is a very complex issue. I mean, we are very engaged. We have 98,000 soldiers on the ground, sailors, airmen, and Marines. I consider that to be very, very engaged. We are spending billions of dollars in Iraq still today. We have the largest embassy in the world in Iraq. So we are engaged across several different levels.

It's not today that I worry about. It's today. It's tomorrow. It's 2011. It's 2012, '13, '14. As everyone knows, all our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines will come out at the end of 2011. That doesn't mean our commitment needs to end.

It needs to be a long-term commitment. The commitment just changes. It changes from one based on mutual security and cooperation, with us having forces on the ground, to one that's across the wide spectrum of governmental support economic, diplomatic, security, environmental, educational. And it's how we invest in that that will be important.

And I think so our challenge we have now is how we transition from a military-centric operation to a civilian-led operation, and then after 2011, how we continue to support Iraq's progress. And to me, that's what's very important here. And so that's what we have to make sure we stay engaged with.

I've said before, and the story I tell is about six months ago now my wife had asked me if I ever saw "Charlie Wilson's War." I hadn't seen it. And so I watched it one night. And what worries me is the last scene of that movie, even though it's about Afghanistan, not about Iraq, if anybody hasn't seen it. But Charlie Wilson had gotten billions of dollars to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan against the Russians. And at the end, he went to get $2 million in order to start an education program in Afghanistan, and he couldn't get anybody to help him to support that program.
...

DR. KAGAN: We had watched the beginning of a reconciliation process among Shi'a groups, and even Shi'a extremist groups such as the League of the Righteous. What's happened to that reconciliation process?

GENERAL ODIERNO: ...One of the things that I've been most pleased with, which I want to make clear to everyone, is in Iraq, the Iraqi security forces have and still conduct significant operations in southern Iraq against these groups. Just a few days ago there was a significant operation in Maysan Province which piked up several individuals from Kataeb Hezbollah.

There's been operations in Basra. There's been operations in Baghdad. There's been operations in all of the southern provinces, Iraqi security force-led, supported by U.S. forces. So they have shown the security force has shown the dedication to go after all target sets if they are enemies of the government of Iraq. And I think that's an important step as we move forward.

DR. KAGAN: And in the category of enemies of Iraq, is al-Qaeda in Iraq still a threat to the government of Iraq? Is it an insurgent group or is it a terrorist group?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, first, I believe the only way al-Qaeda in Iraq can be a threat to the government of Iraq is the government of Iraq lets it be. And I'll now explain that.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, back in 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and 2007, was a broad-based insurgency that had permeated all of northern Iraq and central Iraq and was conducting significant operations throughout Iraq. Over the last since the beginning of 2007 till today, we've been able to make significant progress against al-Qaeda in Iraq, significantly degrade their capacity. It is a shadow of what it once was.

So what they've done is they've transitioned it from a broad-based insurgency into a covert terrorist organization who focus solely on conducting high-profile attacks against the Iraqi people and against the governmental institutions of Iraq.

What is their goal? Their goal is they want to see the government of Iraq fail. And then they want to have ungoverned territory that can be filled by al-Qaeda and other groups that will allow them to maintain safe havens and sanctuaries. They are a long ways from that ever happening.

So what we see now that's frustrating to all of us there is they pick the softest targets possible to kill as many or wound as many civilians as possible because they want to see an overreaction from the government of Iraq. They want to see a miscalculation from the government of Iraq that could push Iraq back into some sort of sectarian violence or lose faith in its own government. They've been absolutely unsuccessful in doing that.

All of our measurements you know, we measure everything. And again, I don't when things were bad in 2006/2007, I said it then and I'll say it now, is the number of incidents and the type of incidents don't necessarily define what Iraq is, but it is a point that you must consider.

And we have consistently continued to come down in every category, to include high-profile attacks. 2009 was about 60 percent less than 2008. And that's after turning over the security file to the government of Iraq. 2010 is continuing to either sustain itself or go down a little bit from 2009. So their capacity to sustain and do this over a long period of time and across the entirety of Iraq is no longer possible. But they can still do attacks.

If I could just, since we're talking about it, I do want to really talk about security in Iraq itself. It's hard to describe this to anybody who's not there every day. But the basic security of Iraq is significantly different than it ever has been.

When you go into Baghdad, if you go into Basra, if you go into Ramadi, if you go into Mosul, if you go into Kirkuk, if you go into any city in Iraq, you see significant improvement of the day-to-day lives of Iraqis. It's completely different than what it was two to three years ago. It's different than it was six months ago.
...

But the reaction of the Iraqis has been exactly what we'd like to see. They condemn al-Qaeda. They say the best way to fight this is to vote in a democratic process, bring a leadership in to continue to go after these elements. We continue to see that theme across Iraq.

They've rejected al-Qaeda
...

DR. KAGAN: So concretely, what does that mean? I mean what do U.S. soldiers in Iraq do now in order to --

GENERAL ODIERNO: Yeah, well, one of the fallacies I want to make sure is very clear is I go out four times a week to visit battalions and brigades and the one thing we do not do is stay on our FOBs and do nothing. I want to make that very clear. If you went and talked to a battalion colonel, they get very offended when they read that. They're out every single day. They do 14 to 15 operations, but they're doing it with their Iraqi security force partners. They're right there helping them to conduct these operations.

What's different is we do not do anything unilaterally. Everything we do is completely coordinated with the government of Iraq, and you will never see a U.S. soldier conduct an operation without an Iraqi security force with him, in fact, without an Iraqi security force in the lead of the operation. But they're out every single day working with the Iraqi security force partners. So we still play a very significant role.
...

DR. KAGAN: You began the discussion by talking about the opportunity that the United States has in Iraq and, indeed, the opportunity that Iraq has right now. What are the long-term U.S. interests in seeing a stable and -- a stable Iraq with a kind of just, accountable and representative government that you described?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, first again, (a democratic Iraq will be) a diplomatic and economic and a security partner in a very volatile part of the world. And Iraq has a significant economic upside, not just from its oil industry but from other industries that we think could spin off from that. And that economic -- their ability to develop that economically inside of Iraq. So with economic development and diplomatic development, making this work could have a significant impact across the entire Middle East.

And secondly and lastly, us having a long term strategic partnership, one that is based on common trust and common goals, one that recognizes each other's own sovereignty, over time would help us in my mind to better secure the United States, because that would give us another partner right in the center of the Middle East that can help us to fight terrorism. I will argue that when we leave there, Iraq will have some of the best characters and forces in the Middle East and they can help us to fight this threat against us from many of these other terrorist groups. So I think that's what we have the potential to gain from this relationship I think is significant.

DR. KAGAN: As we look at that relationship, what kind of engagement is needed by the United States in order to realize this opportunity?

GENERAL ODIERNO: Well, I think think General Keane and yourself mentioned it. It's the Strategic Framework Agreement. Most people don't pay much attention to that. When it was passed in December of '08, everybody paid attention to the SOFA agreement, security agreement. The strategic framework agreement is the basis for this and it's the one agreement that Iraq really looks to. That agreement can, really outlines the long term relationship between the United States and the government of Iraq. They want to have people, the Iraqi people educated in the United States. They want to learn from the United States. They want to learn how to develop their economy. They want to learn about our educational system, our medical capability. So by developing these strong bonds between our two countries at the national level I think will be very important in meeting our long term goals.
...

- to another question

GENERAL ODIERNO:...when I. the reason I come back and try to do some of these things is I worry about those who left Iraq in 2006 and haven't been back. And they think they understand where Iraq is. I talk to every brigade and battalion that comes into Iraq, and the first thing I tell them is, "When did you leave?" I ask them. Some will say, "Two years ago." Some will say, "One year ago." Some will say, "Six months ago." And I say, "If it's three months ago, it's different than it was." Because it's changing so quickly. And so it's important to rotate that expertise out.
...

DR. KAGAN: No. I was going to ask you if there was anything left that you wanted to say before I have the final word, as I always do.

GENERAL ODIERNO: Yeah, okay. I'm very familiar with that, by the way so I just want to close by saying that it's I am one who believes in the young men and women of this country. I've gotten to watch it for seven years up close. I mean, I've been involved in the Army for 34 years almost now. But for the last seven years I've got to watch it up close and personal, the young men and women who are coming out of our society who choose to do what I consider to be the extraordinary, where especially some that have done it two times, three times, four times, five times. And they do it for a lot of different reasons. But there's one, there's about three common reasons that they always have: that they have a bond with the person that stands to their right and left, that they have a love for their unit or their service and third, they have a love of their country and they think they're making a difference. These are great young men and women. They're smart, they're articulate. They've been able to understand the nuances of change and execute them on the run. We have an incredible young leadership coming up. I'm glad that I'm going to retire soon because I'll never be able compete with these young men and women who are coming up and the experiences that they've had.

The Obama administration's apparent intention to use the "budget reconciliation" process to try to advance its proposed health-care overhaul has shined the spotlight on why it, and the federal government as a whole, should not control what will soon be one-fifth of our economy. Simply put, the president has repeatedly emphasized three problems that must be addressed, while pursuing a course of action that would exacerbate all three.

Lack of bipartisanship: As President Obama said last month in his State of the Union address, the government can't pass needed reforms "if we don't also reform how we work with one another." His "health-care summit" is supposedly an attempt to bring Republicans and Democrats together. The president has said, "Well I think that what I want to do is to look at the Republican ideas that are out there." "Bipartisanship" has been a theme of nearly all of his recent health-care remarks.

"Budget reconciliation" prevents use of the filibuster, a feature of the Senate since the early 19th century. The arcane process is designed to help the Senate pass bills that would balance the budget. President Obama would use it to try to pass portions of a $2.5 trillion health-care overhaul without having to get any Republican (or even all Democratic) votes. This is the new era of bipartisanship?

Political cronyism: Interviewing President Obama before the Super Bowl, Katie Couric asked about "all these special deals that were given to certain senators," which, she said, made the American people "pretty sick to their stomachs." He replied, "They did not help. They frustrate me."

Now, Politico reports that part of why the president wants to use the "budget reconciliation" process is to exempt union workers from the tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans. In other words, Americans would pay a 40-percent tax on health benefits above a certain point -- unless they belong to a union, a core constituent of the Democratic party. This is the remedy for cronyism?

Health costs: The President and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have been highlighting recent increases in insurance premiums. These increases are almost entirely the result of two things: rising hospital and drug costs, which Obamacare would do essentially nothing about; and the poor economy, which causes some healthier people to take the calculated risk of dropping their insurance for the short-term, leaving a mix of unhealthier people in insurance pools and raising average costs accordingly. President Obama is willing to blame the economy for the fact that he will run up more deficit spending in just two years than President Bush did in eight, but he's reluctant to admit that this same economy affects entities run by somebody other than the government.

In any event, both the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare Chief Actuary have said that, under Obamacare, insurance premiums would be higher than under current law. So, the solution to high premiums is to pass legislation that would raise them?

In each of these ways, the disconnect between cause and effect, problem and solution, rhetoric and reality, is astounding.

Of course, the biggest disconnect is between the Obama administration and the American people. Americans have made it abundantly clear that they don't want Obamacare. President Obama has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't care.

But House and Senate Democrats are unlikely to continue to turn such a deaf ear toward their constituents.

Healthcare will be the Democrat's Waterloo.

Now, my problem with what the Democrats are doing is not so much with "reconciliation" or any other parliamentary maneuver, so liberal commenters are advised not to get their panties in a wad over how Republicans did this or that when they were in power.

My problems are that

1) They are trying to pass an insane bill that bill make the situation in our country much worse in both the short and long terms,

2) Their real objective is to take over and/or control as much of the economy as possible. In other words, de facto socialism, and

3) The will of the people is so obviously against it.

You might say "if you think it'll be their Waterloo they aren't you glad they're doing it?" Of course not, because they'll wreck tremendous damage on the country in the process that will be difficult to undo.

We've got to find a way to stop this freight train before it's too late.

number of nations.

This and other videos can be seen at DODvClips. The Pentagon Channel also has videos and news stories, so visit it as well.

The transcript is at DefenseLink.

MG Carter updates us on the progress we're making in Operation Moshtarak in his opening remarks:

And what we've tried -- been trying to do here is to get the Afghan government to assert its authority over a number of places in Helmand which have been ungoverned for some months now. So that was the key objective, about the Afghan government asserting its control and authority over central Helmand and the ungoverned spaces that existed within it....

Now, the second part of setting the political context was about making sure that the Afghan government in Kabul was fully behind this operation. And Governor Mangal about three-and-a-half weeks ago led a delegation consisting of my two security partners -- General Wardak, who runs the regional police that corresponds to RC South; and General Zazai, who commands the 205th Corps of the Afghan National Army.

He led this delegation up to Kabul, where they briefed President Karzai and his national-security committee on how the operation would work.

What they showed to him was that the operation had been planned from the finish back to the start, with, importantly, governance at the tip of the spear. So what Governor Mangal was able to reassure the president about was that they had thought through very carefully the sorts of services that people wanted to have on the ground and how that would represent betterment for the population....

Now, up front, as the commander on the ground, there were two things that I wanted to ensure were put in place before the operation was mounted, the first one of which was to ensure that the political context was properly set, and the second one was to ensure that we had adequate resources to conduct the operation. And I'll talk to the setting of the political context first of all....

Now, a second part of the operational prerequisite that I had for this operation was to ensure that we had adequate resources. And what I'm talking about here is predominantly Afghan national security force resources. And for the operation, six ANA [Afghan National Army] kandaks, or battalion, were -- battalions, were made available, as were two of the special commando kandaks, around a thousand of the ANCOP, or the Afghan gendarmerie -- that's their special police force that's nationally recruited. And we are in the process of training around a thousand new Afghan national policemen, who will be fed into Nad Ali and Marja once the hold phase of the operation starts to bite effectively.

And, of course, what's made all of this possible is the fact that the first two U.S. Marine Corps battalions that President Obama announced as part of his uplift before Christmas became available to us during the course of December and January. And they, in partnership with these Afghan national security forces and an uplift that Gordon Brown announced for British forces, has made it possible for us to put on the ground around 8,000 combined troops, who have provided the sort of force densities that are needed generally to bring the sort of security that's required on the ground.

Now, inserting all of this in a way that guarantees surprise, given that we were quite open about the fact this operation was happening, was a challenge. Now, I know that the scale of aviation assault that happened at the beginning of the Iraq war was a sight to behold. But in terms of detail coordination, I think the aviation insertion that took place last Saturday morning was most impressive, for it brought together not just one nation, but five nations' worth of helicopter pilots and a whole load of Afghans de-busing from the back of these helicopters as well....

And the upshot of this was that complete tactical surprise was achieved. And the insurgence was entirely dislocated in the first 24 hours of the operation....

Although there was much of interest in the briefing, we'll just concentrate on one exchange in the Q & A, because it goes to the heart of counterinsurgency warfare

Q Sir, Bryan Bender with the Boston Globe. To try and follow up on that, obviously your focus -- a lot of your focus now is this operation, but can you give us a broader assessment of your headquarters and the larger region of the south? What does the enemy look like? What does the population look like in terms of their view of the government? Kind of give us a sense of what your challenge is going forward in the next six months to stabilize not just this region but what you just said has been one of the most unstable.

GEN. CARTER: Yes. I mean, I think one of the things -- the key things that changed with General McChrystal's population-centric approach is that a mission statement that was very much focused on defeating an insurgency switched firmly to protecting a population.

Now in the south, that means that given even the additional resources we've got, that we have to be very focused on where the population is living.

Central Helmand is therefore important to us because, taking Lashkar Gah as the center, from Lashkar Gah north by about 50 kilometers, and from Lashkar Gah south down to Garmsir, another distance of about a hundred kilometers, within that part of the Helmand Valley around 750,000 people live.

Equally, over in Kandahar, in the urban area lives around 500,000 people, and around it, in its rural environs, all of which are very closely irrigated and therefore significantly populated, another 500,000 people live.

So taking the overall population in the south -- there's around 3 million -- you can see if you focused your attention in population- centric terms on those two population areas, you're picking up around two-thirds of the population.

So from my perspective as an RC South commander, my principal effort goes towards central Helmand and to the population living in and around Kandahar and the urban area.

I'm also very conscious of freedom of movement between those two population centers, because if you can get Afghans to be able to move freely on those roads, you'll begin to get the economy to move and governance to be delivered more broadly across the region.

Now as the population sees it at the moment, it does not feel able to move freely on those roads, and indeed it is regularly fleeced at illegal checkpoints if it tries to move goods and services that it has grown in these agricultural areas, as it were, to market or indeed further afield. And what we have to do is to improve that paradigm and to make that population feel protected.

The challenge, though, is that we need adequate ANSF (Afghanistan National Security Forces) to be able to do that. And the big difficulty for us at the moment is that we need more policemen to do this, and we're therefore working extremely hard to build on the police force, in conjunction with the army, to give ourself [sic] that partnership to be able genuinely to pop -- to protect that population.

I've gone over this a kazillion times on this blog while discussing Iraq and Afghanistan, but once more can't hurt; the key to beating insurgents is to win over the population. This does not mean they have to like the counterinsurgents, rather that they must 1) believe the counterinsurgents must win and that 2) it is their best interests that they win. The first step is protecting the population. If the counterinsurgents cannot protect the people, all the building projects in the world are worthless.

We were able to protect the population in Iraq after the surge of 2007, and after we won them over this led to a process whereby the insurgents had no place to hide.

Now I realize this is a quite simplified version of events, that there were several regional insurgencies in Iraq, each of which was quite different. And there was the Anbar Awakening. But it is a good description of the overall picture and the definition of how to win.

It's so far so good with Operation Moshtarak, and we'll just have to wait and see whether our gains are permanent.

Previous
Operation Moshtarak: Kinetic Operations in Afghanistan Begin Anew

In unusually blunt language, an International Atomic Energy Agency report for the first time suggested Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability, throwing independent weight behind similar Western suspicions.

The IAEA seemed to be cautiously going public with concerns arising from a classified agency analysis leaked in part last year which concluded that Iran has already honed explosives expertise relevant to a workable nuclear weapon.

The report also confirmed Iran had produced its first small batch of uranium enriched to a higher purity -- 20 percent.

Both developments will intensify pressure on Iran to prove it is not covertly bent on "weaponizing" enrichment by allowing unfettered access for IAEA inspectors and investigators, something it rejects in protest at U.N. sanctions.

The United States is already leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran because of suspicions it may be developing nuclear weapons and has received declarations of support from Russia, which has until now been reluctant to expand sanctions.

"We always said that if Iran failed to live up to those international obligations, that there would be consequences," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama flew to a political event.

What consequences? Conveniently, Gibbs doesn't say.

There are, of course, two parts to a nuclear bomb; the warhead and the nuclear fuel. It's relatively easy to design "a bomb" if you don't care about size or how it's packaged. In other words, it's one thing to make something that will explode in a static test, quite another to make it so that it can be carried by an airplane or put atop a missile and still explode after going through the stresses of being blasted off, carried to altitude, dropped, etc.

The Warhead

In November of 2009, the Guardian published an explosive report that suggested that Iran was testing warheads:

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response.

So today's IAEA report did not come out of the blue.

The Fuel

Back to the Reuters story. Let's refresh ourselves with where Iran is on enriching uranium:

Last week, Iran announced a start to higher-scale enrichment, saying it was frustrated at the collapse of an IAEA-backed plan for big powers to provide it with fuel rods for nuclear medicine made from uranium refined to 20 percent purity.

The IAEA report complained that Iran had begun feeding low-enriched uranium (LEU) into centrifuges for higher refinement before inspectors could get to the scene in the Natanz pilot enrichment facility.
...

The big powers accused Iran of reneging on an agreement to ship out two-thirds of its LEU reserve to be turned into fuel rods for the medical reactor. This would have prevented Iran retaining enough of the material to fuel a nuclear weapon, if it were refined to about 90 percent purity.

Only France, one party to the U.N. draft deal, and Argentina are known to possess the technology. So analysts ask why Iran would enrich uranium well above its needs, except to lay the groundwork for producing bomb-grade uranium.

The report further said that Iran had increased its LEU stockpile by some 300 kg (660 pounds) to 2.06 tons since November -- enough for one or two nuclear bombs if enriched to 90 percent purity.

The IAEA said over nine-tenths of the LEU stockpile had been earmarked for enrichment up to 20 percent, a significant mark as further enrichment up to 90 percent may need only a few months.

"...only a few months" Let that sink in.

The Taliban's top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

he commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

Another AP story yesterday indicates that he has, in fact, been talking:

Baradar, who also functioned as the link between Mullah Omar and field commanders, has been in detention for more than 10 days and was talking to interrogators, two Pakistani intelligence officials said Tuesday. One said several other suspects were also captured in the raid. He said Baradar had provided "useful information" to them and that Pakistan had shared it with their U.S. counterparts.

All in all this is very good news in that we have neutralized the top Taliban commander just after the launch of Operation Moshtarak, which I covered on Monday. Their propaganda to the contrary, Taliban and other insurgent leaders must not be happy.

Of course, there's more to it than just this. As always with the Obama Administration, the capture and treatment of Baradar illustrates the contradictions inherent in their policies. The New York Times story quoted above goes on to highlight one of them:

Liberals complain to high heaven that Bush "tortured" captured "suspects" but we'll see if they complain about the treatment of Baradar, who I guarantee you was not read his Miranda rights and does not have ACLU lawyers by his side.

Did we deliberatly allow the Pakistani's to capture Baradar, or hand him over to them after we caught him, simply to avoid these legal issues of so much concern to the left? How long will this de facto "rendition" last?

In fact, I would imagine it's pretty clear the Pakistanis are using all sorts of unpleasant methods to get information out of Baradar. In the months and years to come they'll dig strategic information out of him, but in the short term they're looking for tactical details that are actionable on the battlefield.

Further, AG Eric Holder, and by implication President Obama, plan on trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellows in New York City, even though he too was captured in Pakistan in 2003. Of course, as we all know, bringing KSM to New York City was all about appeasing the left wing of the Democrat party and little else.

Conclusion: It's OK if Obama does it, but it was torture and violation of international law when Bush-Cheney did it.

Who is Abdul Ghani Baradar?

In The Taliban Explained I quoted at length a backgrounder report published by Kimberly Kagan's Institute for the Study of War. Read the whole thing, but here is the relevant section

Although Mullah Mohammad Omar remains the figurehead atop the QST (Quetta Shura Taliban) organization, he no longer directs day-to-day operations. His reputation and admiration among rank-and-file Taliban still make him the spiritual leader of the movement,....The QST's day-to-day operations are handled by Omar's top deputy, Mullah Barader (or "Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar")....

Back to Afghanistan

The NYT story makes clear the implications of the capture:

His capture could cripple the Taliban's military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who last spring led the Obama administration's Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.

Readers of this website will know that while I lambasted Obama for dithering in making his decision to "surge" troops into Afghanistan, and that I was unhappy that he only gave McChrystal only 30,000 of the 40,000 troops he requested, and that he put a ridiculous timelimit on success, I am generally pleased with his decision. It's certainly better than the alternates he could have chosen.

I'll have more to say about the capture of Baradar and Operation Moshtarak, but I've got to go so for now here is some commentary that I largely agree with.

Cliff May:

The news of his capture in Pakistan is a pretty big deal.

Among the reasons:

Next to Mullah Omar, Mullah Baradar was the biggest fish. It won't be easy to replace him with someone as skilled.

He probably has a lot to tell -- and the Pakistanis will not read him his Miranda rights.

It's significant that the ISI, Pakistani intelligence, decided to cooperate with us and capture him. They've been ambivalent at best about the Afghan Taliban (which they separate from the Pakistani Taliban).

Mullah Baradar may know where Osama bin Laden is or at least have information that could help find him. (I'm assuming the Pakistanis don't know already -- not sure that's true. I don't think Osama is living in a cave. I think he's in a quite comfortable villa.

Also interesting that Baradar was captured in Karachi -- a major Pakistani city (which I visited just a few months ago -- and which is a very dangerous place). But this proves once again that it's not just the wild and wooly tribal areas that are infested with terrorists.

Bill Roggio:

The Afghan Taliban's leadership cadre have long operated from within Pakistan. The Taliban's leadership council, called the Quetta Shura, has operated from the Pakistani city of the same name for years, according to Afghan and US officials.

Last fall, the Quetta Shura, and Mullah Omar himself, were reported to have been relocated to Karachi.

Baradar's arrest, if confirmed, creates problems for the Pakistani government. Numerous Pakistani government, military, and intelligence officials have repeatedly denied the existence of the Quetta Shura and have disputed claims that it had moved to Karachi.

But Baradar's arrest in Karachi would provide the strongest evidence that the Quetta Shura is now in the Pakistani port city.

The Inter-Services Intelligence agency has long been accused of sheltering the Quetta Shura, as it views the Afghan Taliban as its greatest asset in regaining influence in Afghanistan. The terror group would also serve as strategic depth, or a reserve, against India and Indian influence inside Afghanistan.