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...Afghanistan - the war that President-elect Barack Obama pledged to fight and win - has become an aimless absurdity. It began with a specific target. Afghanistan was where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda lived, harbored by the Islamic extremist Taliban government. But the enemy escaped into Pakistan, and for the past seven years, Afghanistan has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the "Taliban." These ragtag bands are funded by opium profits and led by assorted religious extremists and druglords, many of whom have safe havens...
...know what the mission used to be - to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and destroy his al-Qaeda command. But once bin Laden slipped away, the mission morphed into a vast, messy nation-building effort to support the allegedly democratic Karzai government. There was a certain logic to that. The Taliban and al-Qaeda can't base themselves in Afghanistan if something resembling a stable, secure nation-state exists there. But the mission was also historically implausible: Afghanistan has never had a strong central government. It has been governed for thousands of years by local and regional tribal coalitions...
...building stability remains a logical one - but this war has become something of a sideshow in South Asia. The far more serious problem is Pakistan, a flimsy state with illogical borders, nuclear weapons and a mortal religious enmity toward India, its neighbor to the south. Pakistan is where bin Laden now lives, if he lives. The Bush Administration chose to coddle Pakistan's military leadership, which promised to help in the fight against al-Qaeda - but it hasn't helped much, although there are signs that the fragile new government of President Asif Ali Zardari may be more cooperative. Still...
...Hartmann. But his legacy will live on. A few weeks ago, a military judge brushed aside strong opposition from Hartmann's prosecutors and freed Osama bin Laden's driver, held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years. Then a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush demanded the liberation of five Algerian-born prisoners also held at Guantánamo since 2001. The reason: evidence of their purported crimes is lacking. On January 26 - six days after Obama's inauguration - a Guantánamo court is scheduled to begin hearing the case of Omar Khadr, who was taken into custody...
Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, Osama bin Laden's alleged right-hand man in Europe, was returned to a British prison on Dec. 2 amid fears that he might flee, violating the conditions of his bail. Although Qatada was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of being "heavily involved" in al-Qaeda activities, he was never charged. He was released on bail in June after a court determined that he would not face a fair trial if returned to his home country of Jordan. He is set to remain in prison indefinitely, pending another legal battle over his deportation...