I'm Not a Copy Editor

Afghanistan's private sector seems to be having trouble importing certain necessary staples, though the government denies there are problems.

Governement efforts to buy other staples seemed to have hit a roadblock as well.

Wow. Bad Idea.

US forces in Afghanistan are working on a terrible idea for arming villagers in tribal areas to guard themselves against better-equipped and better-trained Taliban fighters in the area. No details are clear on how the plan would work.

Perhaps they're thinking about the successful Awakening Councils in Iraq, if they're thinking at all, but the circumstances in tribal Afghanistan are so incredibly different the program is likely to cause havoc.

Border Region

Despite minor improvements and millions spent in "training and professionalization," the Pakistan-Afghanistan border remains porous, with terrorists moving freely between the two.

Today, In Obama News

Obama is working on clarifying plans for closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which he now says could take up to a year to finish.  

At the same time, his team is reassessing their Afghanistan strategy, saying the additional 30,000 troops they plan to send in will be more of an attempt to "buy time" to create a more concrete strategy than a complete turn-around of the situation.  

Some officials have written off the idea of a "stable, democratic Afghanistan" as entirely unrealistic, and are ready to make concessions and compromises in their final strategy.  

Common Interests

Gen. David Petraeus spoke in D.C. yesterday about some shared interests the United States and Iran may have in Afghanistan.  Though making it clear that any increased cooperation was to be decided by policymakers, Petraeus did say that Iran does not want "ultrafundamentalist extremist Sunni forces" to gain control, nor see opium production increase.  

The idea coincides nicely with the incoming president, who has voiced considerations of a dialogue with Iran.  

'Having said that," the general said, "I'm sure there's an element (in Iran) that is determining how they can make life miserable for the coalition and the alliance and Afghan forces as well. NATO troops in Afghanistan have intercepted small amounts of weapons coming in from Iran.  

Also interesting is the reporter's use of the word "loggerheads" in describing the relationship between the US and Iran in the last paragraph.  Loggerheads?  Really?  

20,000

U.S. Deputy of Foreign Affairs Richard Boucher met with Afghanistan's foreign minister today, assuring him 20,000 more American troops into Afghanistan by August.  

Brotherly Love

Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as a "brother" in their fight against terrorism and "non-state actors" in Kabul yesterday. Relations between Karzai and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf were more tenuous -- a rift that led in part to an inability to govern tribal border areas between the two neighbors.

Let's hope this paves the way to a cooperative relationship in combating extremism. I wonder what Tariq Ali has to say about this.

Afghan Schools

In another defining element of a failed state, Afghanistan is seeing a dramatic reduction in primary education rates; 141 teachers and students killed this past year and 173,000 dropouts largely due to safety concerns, reports quqnoos.