Word: clear
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...success to measure. So part of the Obama Administration's strategy is to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, from 57,000 now to 68,000 by the fall. The extra troops should help bring security to parts of Afghanistan that lack it, but McChrystal is clear that security alone is but a means to an end. "The point of security," he says, "is to enable governance ... My metric is not the enemy killed, not ground taken: it's how much governance we've got." Decent governance, the thinking goes - providing the rule of law and economic opportunity...
...however much the Pakistanis help, McChrystal does not have an easy job. He concedes that Afghanistan's current security forces - 86,000 soldiers and 82,000 national police - aren't enough to protect the country. And U.S. commanders have made it clear that even with reinforcements in the pipeline, they don't have enough troops to run a full-fledged counterinsurgency campaign. That is one reason U.S. commanders came to rely on airpower, which only perpetuated a feedback loop that made the job of winning trust among Afghans even harder...
...Appropriations Committee, said in May he's giving the White House a year to show progress - however defined - in Afghanistan. But at his confirmation hearing, McChrystal said he expects it will take 18 to 24 months to see whether things are turning around, and talking to TIME, he was clear that it will take even longer than that to make "permanent progress." (Read "Why Obama's Afghan War Is Different...
...Obama is to succeed with his domestic-policy agenda, he needs to convince people that action is necessary on these abstruse issues. He is going to have to demand clear, comprehensible solutions from Congress, and he is going to have to admit what most civilians know in their gut: that a price must be paid for a better, more secure health-care system and action on climate change. This will be easier with the more immediate issue, health-insurance reform. There are compromises that can be made - and Obama should admit that John McCain's plan to tax employer-provided...
...with key Republicans. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said his boss - who the day before conveyed to Baucus he would have trouble getting his fellow Democrats to vote for taxing health benefits - told the Republicans that the time for posturing was over. It was now time, he stressed, to make clear whether they intended to be part of the process of writing a bill or simply oppose it. "The message was, 'Are you in or are you out?' " Manley said. But where Reid may have thought he was drawing a line in the sand, GOP Senators took away the opposite message...