Word: qaeda
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...practical handbook, which went to No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list and No. 1 on Amazon, is brimming with ideas. In it, Moore suggests a busy agenda for a Democratic President's first 10 days, including drafting rich kids to fight our wars, defeating al-Qaeda by digging water wells around the world, banning high-fructose corn syrup and making HBO free for everyone. He proposes six ways to fix elections - I mean, make the process work. (Oddly, these don't include putting elections for the presidency, the Senate and the House under federal aegis...
...arrive fast enough or in sufficient numbers. Afghanistan is a third larger than Iraq in size, and its terrain is a lot more difficult. Counterinsurgency expert John Nagl has estimated that there should be 600,000 troops--including Afghan ones--inside the country to quell the Taliban and al-Qaeda threat. Currently there are only about 65,000 coalition forces (including 33,000 U.S. troops) on the ground, in addition to some 70,000 Afghan army personnel--of whom fewer than half can fully function on their own--plus an ineffective police force. Iraq, by contrast, has some...
...once again celebrating Mass. But Hamad said he never could have done the job without the help of a local Awakening group that the government is disbanding, concerned that the loyalties of its members are uncertain. Hamad thinks this is a mistake. "Some of these people helped al-Qaeda [only] because they needed the funds," he said. "All they have known for four years is war. If the government doesn't treat them with respect and help give them jobs, they will go back...
...instead. Already, Obama has indicated that he approves the general direction in which Petraeus is heading. Unlike President Bush, Obama strongly supports nation-building in both Afghanistan and Pakistan; and, like Petraeus, he favors negotiations with some of the pro-Taliban tribes (at least those who are not al-Qaeda). Unlike McCain, Obama will not be reluctant to continue the current cross-border strikes, via Predator drone, against selected terrorist targets in Pakistan...
...Pakistan will have to be handled carefully. A senior U.S. official told me that the intelligence community now considers Pakistan the "central front" in the war on terrorism. "Al-Qaeda wants to go after the Pakistani leadership," the official said. With foreign fighters coagulating in Pakistan's border regions, forging a renewed U.S.-Pakistani alliance against al-Qaeda will be a top priority...