”There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind…” — The Great Gatsby

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

By George Friedman

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggested last week that the United States could wrap up combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2013, well before the longstanding 2014 deadline when full control is to be ceded to Kabul. Troops would remain in Afghanistan until 2014, as agreed upon at the 2010 Lisbon Summit, and would be engaged in two roles until at least 2014 and perhaps even later. One role would be continuing the training of Afghan security forces. The other would involve special operations troops carrying out capture or kill operations against high-value targets.

Along with this announcement, the White House gave The New York Times some details on negotiations that have been under way with the Taliban. According to the Times, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the senior-most leader of the Afghan Taliban, last summer made overtures to the White House offering negotiations. An intermediary claiming to speak for Mullah Omar delivered the proposal, an unsigned document purportedly from Mullah Omar that could not be established as authentic. The letter demanded the release of some Taliban prisoners before any talks. In spite of the ambiguities, which included a recent public denial by the Taliban that the offer came from Mullah Omar, U.S. officials, obviously acting on other intelligence, regarded the proposal as both authentic and representative of the views of the Taliban leadership and, in all likelihood, those of Mullah Omar, too.

The idea of negotiating with the Taliban is not new. Talks, as distinct from negotiations, in which specific terms are hammered out, have gone on for some time now. Several previous attempts have ended in failure, including one instance when the supposed representative proved to be a fraud. However, according to the Times report, the negotiations took on a degree of specificity last summer. They began in November 2010, initiated by a man named Tayyab Agha, who claimed to speak for Mullah Omar. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama regards authenticating the present offer as unimportant and the intermediary as having authority; the question on the table is the release of Taliban captives as a token of American seriousness.

The Taliban see themselves as already having made a major concession. Their original demand was the complete withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan as a precondition for negotiations. The talks have continued in spite of the U.S. refusal to comply. The Taliban shifted their position to a very specific timetable for withdrawal, something Panetta may have been hinting at last week, though not on a timetable to the Taliban’s liking. Two more years of combat operations — not to mention an unspecified time in which U.S. special operations forces will continue working in Afghanistan — is a long time. In addition, the United States has not delivered on the release of the Taliban, an issue that has not emerged as a campaign issue in the U.S. presidential election.

Still, U.S. operations have become less aggressive. This is in part due to the season: It is winter in Afghanistan, a time of year when large-scale operations are not practical in many areas. At the same time, we are not seeing the level of operations we have seen in previous winters after Obama increased the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This in part reflects a realization of the limits of U.S. military power in Afghanistan. Regardless of the motive, the Taliban interpret it as a signal — and it is understood in Washington as a signal, too.

The Pakistani-Taliban Channel

To get negotiations going, the United States had to reach two conclusions. The first was that negotiations could not happen without Pakistani involvement. U.S. accusations that current and former military figures in Pakistan maintained close ties with the Taliban undoubtedly were true. Conversely, this meant Pakistan represented a clear channel the United States could use to reach the Taliban. That channel permitted the Obama administration to conclude that it had no hope of meaningfully dividing the Taliban.

Certainly, the Taliban are an operationally diffuse group. Even so, Mullah Omar is at their center, with the political operatives surrounding him representing the political office of the Taliban. The line of communications with the Taliban runs through Pakistan and terminates with Mullah Omar. This means that U.S. hopes of splitting the Taliban politically and conducting factional negotiations are not realistic. Particularly after a series of attacks and suicide bombings in Kabul last fall, it also became apparent that the United States would not be able to manage negotiations at arm’s length using Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his advisers as the primary channel.

The Pakistanis and the Taliban also had to face certain realities. The Taliban had claimed that the United States and its allies in Afghanistan had lost. This underpinned their demand for an immediate U.S. withdrawal; their offer to permit this without harassment was made under the assumption that the United States had a defeated military force at risk.

The reality was that, while the United States had not won the war in Afghanistan and in all likelihood could not defeat the Taliban militarily, it was far from defeated. The United States remained, and remains, able to conduct operations in Afghanistan as and where it wishes. The Taliban have not reached the point where they can operationally defeat the forces arrayed against them. Where large Western forces exist, the Taliban must decline combat and disengage or be annihilated. As important, there is no overwhelming pressure from the American public to withdraw — something not true of some U.S. allies. However, in this election, Obama is likely to be challenged by candidates supporting his position in Afghanistan or wanting a more aggressive stance. Mitt Romney, for example, not only rejected the idea of releasing Taliban fighters, but also said in response to a question that his strategy in Afghanistan was to "beat them."

The United States could hypothetically remain in Afghanistan indefinitely given the current cost and force structure. But we would argue that defeating a guerrilla force with sanctuary and support across the border in Pakistan, an excellent intelligence capability and units able to operate independently is unlikely. But neither, for that matter, can the Taliban defeat the coalition forces.

Stalemate in Afghanistan

This makes for a stalemate, one the Americans hope to solve by creating an Afghan state under Karzai and a security and military force able and willing to engage the Taliban. As I have argued in the past, the core problem with this plan is the same problem that existed during the Vietnamization phase of the Vietnam War. The Afghan military must recruit troops, and some of the most eager volunteers will be Taliban operatives. These operatives will be indistinguishable from anti-Taliban soldiers, and their presence will have two consequences. First, the intelligence they will provide the Taliban will cause the Afghan army offensive to fail. Second, shrewd use of these operatives will undermine the cohesion and morale of the Afghan forces. Surprise is crucial in locating, engaging and destroying a guerrilla force. Afghan security forces will face the same problem the South Vietnamese army did; namely, they will lack the element of surprise and at least some of their units will be unreliable.

Accordingly, the U.S. strategy of using the stalemate to construct a capable military force accordingly looks unlikely to succeed even leaving aside the issue of the fragmentation of the Afghan nation and the Karzai government’s internal problems. The Taliban are intimately familiar with the U.S. dilemma and are positioned to choose from two strategies. One is to increase their tempo of operations and so increase American casualties prior to the November elections. But this strategy would see Taliban casualties increase even more dramatically, and its impact on the elections would be unclear to say the least. The Taliban are more likely to pursue the second strategy, which involves accepting the stalemate and permitting the United States to try to build an Afghan military.

Like the Taliban, the United States is aware of the difficulty of building an Afghan army. It also understands that deploying troops in Afghanistan is unlikely to lead anywhere. It does not have to flee defeat in Afghanistan, but there are strategic reasons for leaving, beginning with the fact that the military situation is about as satisfactory as it likely ever will be. Improving the situation would incur costs without yielding anything like victory. With the United States reducing its military budget, serious issues emerging in Iran and throughout the Arab World, and a new emphasis by the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force on the Pacific, the world is moving on. A violent yet frozen conflict in Afghanistan simply does not benefit the United States.

This, of course, leaves a crucial question: Will Afghanistan become a base for al Qaeda or follow-on transnational jihadist groups in the event of a U.S. withdrawal? It is true that these groups can form anywhere, but the fact is that they did form in Afghanistan while Mullah Omar was in charge. The negotiators undoubtedly have promised that, in exchange for withdrawal, they will take responsibility for suppressing jihadist elements. But trusting the Taliban, or trusting those in Pakistan who took violent offense at the killing of Osama bin Laden, poses obvious risks for the United States. In truth, it does not increase the risk much: Afghanistan is not necessary for the jihadists, but it is naturally fragmented and the threat of its re-emergence as a sanctuary is always there. Even so, the issue will remain a sticking point in the negotiations. The United States will want a residual force to deal with the jihadist threat, something the Taliban and Pakistan will oppose.

The Pakistani Role

In this sense, the negotiations really come down to Pakistan and the burden it is willing to undertake in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.

The United States does not trust the Taliban or many of those Pakistani officials speaking to and for the Taliban. But the United States also knows two things. First, that the future of Afghanistan is of fundamental interest to Pakistan. Instability or Indian or Iranian influence in Pakistan is not in Pakistan’s interest. Therefore, the Pakistanis will play a leading role in Afghanistan as they did after the end of the Soviet occupation. Second, the United States knows that India remains Pakistan’s major adversary. The Pakistanis have tried to play the China card to make the United States nervous about Pakistan. But the fact is that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army does not have the training and logistics to support Pakistan against India, and the last thing Pakistan wants is a large Chinese military deployment in Pakistan. Indeed, that is the last thing China wants.

The issue over time will boil down to this: The United States will want a coalition government in which Taliban elements take Cabinet positions in the current structure of the Karzai regime. The Taliban will want an entirely new government in which elements of the existing power structure (Karzai has promised not to seek a third term when his current one ends in 2014) might have a position but that would be an altogether new regime. In either case, the Taliban assume, as the North Vietnamese assumed a generation ago, that a political settlement followed by a U.S. withdrawal would, after a "decent interval," result in a Taliban-dominated regime.

Ultimately, the United States could remain in Afghanistan indefinitely and there is nothing the Taliban could do about it. But the United States cannot defeat the Taliban. The Taliban have nowhere to go and no desire to leave. The United States has other issues to attend to and no overriding strategic interest in Afghanistan. From the American point of view, its presence in Afghanistan does not reduce Islamist threats to the homeland but it does absorb military resources.

What the United States is engaged in now, as it was in 1971, is the complex process of crafting a political path from the current situation to the inevitable end. This isn’t easy, since the manner in which the United States withdraws will influence its position in the region as much as its indefinite presence would. This is why the administration is so eager to pursue the current initiative and prepared to release prisoners as a gesture. It is also why the Taliban will accept a coalition government for a while, and why Pakistan will make and likely honor guarantees.

However this war is brought to an end will be a complex and time-consuming process, during which the fighting will continue. But then the how is never trivial in ending a war.

http://www.stratfor.com/

BOOK: The Next Decade: What the World Will Look Like by George Friedman

The author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Next 100 Years now focuses his geopolitical forecasting acumen on the next decade and the imminent events and challenges that will test America and the world, specifically addressing the skills that will be required by the decade’s leaders.

The next ten years will be a time of massive transition. The wars in the Islamic world will be subsiding, and terrorism will become something we learn to live with. China will be encountering its crisis. We will be moving from a time when financial crises dominate the world to a time when labor shortages will begin to dominate. The new century will be taking shape in the next decade.

In The Next Decade, George Friedman offers readers a pro­vocative and endlessly fascinating prognosis for the immedi­ate future. Using Machiavelli’s The Prince as a model, Friedman focuses on the world’s leaders—particularly the American president—and with his trusted geopolitical insight analyzes the complex chess game they will all have to play. The book also asks how to be a good president in a decade of extraordinary challenge, and puts the world’s leaders under a microscope to explain how they will arrive at the decisions they will make—and the consequences these actions will have for us all.

Detention of U.S. Persons as Enemy Belligerents, Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, February 1, 2012.

"P.L. 112-81, affirm that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), P.L. 107-40, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, authorizes the detention of persons captured in connection with hostilities. The Act provides for the first time a statutory definition of covered persons whose detention is authorized pursuant to the AUMF. During debate of the provision, significant attention focused on the applicability of this detention authority to U.S. citizens and other persons within the United States. The Senate adopted an amendment to clarify that the provision was not intended to affect any existing law or authorities relating to the detention of U.S. citizens or lawful resident aliens, or any other persons captured or arrested in the United States. This report analyzes the existing law and authority to detain U.S. persons, including American citizens and resident aliens, as well as other persons within the United States who are suspected of being members, agents, or associates of Al Qaeda or possibly other terrorist organizations as “enemy combatants.”

Share of Immigration Cases Ending in Deportation Orders Hits Record Low

TRAC’s web-based tools monitoring ICE’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion in the Immigration Courts have been updated with court data tracking outcomes through December 2011.

Very current data show that deportation orders fell, while individuals allowed to stay in the U.S. rose during October – December 2011. The share of ICE-initiated Immigration Court deportation proceedings resulting in deportation orders — 64.8 percent — reached the lowest level in the past 20 years. Results are believed to reflect in part ICE’s ongoing review of the court’s backlog.

A webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, February 15, at 2:00pm EST to present and discuss these new data and findings. Contacttrac@syr.edu to register.

TRAC’s findings are based on case-by-case data obtained from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

TRAC’s latest report can be viewed at this address:
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/272/

For the accompanying data tools which allow tracking by outcome, Immigration Court, hearing location, charge and nationality, go to:
http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/deport_outcome_charge.php

These related monitoring tools have also been updated:
http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/court_proctime_outcome.php
http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/court_proctime_charge.php

To keep up with TRAC, follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:
http://facebook.com/tracreports

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
Syracuse University
Suite 360, Newhouse II
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
315-443-3563
trac@syr.edu
http://trac.syr.edu

02/05/2012 01

By Ed Quillen

Slouched in my overstuffed chair, I had a good book near a warm fire, and I could feel a welcome attack of sloth coming on. Of course, the telephone had to ring then. It was my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.

As soon as I recognized his voice, I interrupted him. "If you’re a Voice of the Republican Establishment telling me Mitt Romney’s the One and I should attack Newt Gingrich, don’t even try."

"What, you like Newt?" Ziegler sounded nonplussed. "I have a hard time believing that, since you’re a Democrat."

"That’s why," I explained. "It does my bleeding heart good to hear him rip into robot Romney. I hope he keeps it up until August."

Ziegler sighed. "That’s what the Committee worries about."

"So why don’t you do something about it?" I asked.

"Our powers are limited," Ziegler explained. "We did manage to turn Romney into what he is now from what he had been, a pro-choice supporter of gay-rights and socialized medicine, somebody you might have voted for. But we can’t make Newt consistently sound sane."

"That would be a challenge," I consoled.

Ziegler snorted agreement. "He’ll talk about things that people care about, like jobs and houses. Then he’ll babble about making a state out of a lunar colony. And to think we used to call Jerry Brown ‘Governor Moonbeam.’ "

Ziegler switched gears. "What’s your take on Rick Santorum? You know he’s been endorsed by some of your fellow Coloradans like Tom Tancredo, Bob Shaffer and Jane Norton."

"Three losers," I pointed out. "Plus, how can Santorum go around campaigning for a smaller government when he wants one big enough to patrol every uterus in America?"

"He never said that," Ziegler harrumphed. "This is a fabrication from the Biased Liberal Media."

"What else could it mean when he says life begins at conception and all abortion should be outlawed? He’s even opposed to birth control for married people," I pointed out.

"I never thought of it that way," Ziegler replied, He changed the subject. "Got a take on Ron Paul?"

"I like his views on drugs and foreign policy," I confessed. "But I haven’t liked Ron Paul ever since I heard him speak years ago and he made fun of siestas. I cherish my siestas and I’ll never vote for anyone who questions them."

Ziegler said I should have a more open mind, and further, I should quit opposing candidates just because they say hateful things about the chattering class. "Really, it’s not becoming for you to despise them just because they despise you. You need to rise above that."

"They seem to hate the financially challenged, too," I complained.

Ziegler pointed out that I could use a personality transplant, "Help me out a little here," he continued. "Your state has its Republican caucuses next week, and the Committee would like to know what you Coloradans are talking about these days, aside from Tim Tebow."

That was easy. "Rep. Laura Bradford." I briefly explained the situation, but Ziegler interrupted.

"I know about that," he said, "and I’m sure we’ll eventually find out whether she tried to pull rank after she was pulled over. So why all the talk?"

"I think it’s because someone who had an encounter with the Denver police did not get beat up or mistreated," I explained. "After the stuff we’ve seen, with cops pounding people, lying about, and still keeping their jobs, people figure she must have pulled rank if she was treated politely."

"You know what? I don’t think I’ll have time to visit Colorado," Ziegler said before hanging up.

Freelance columnist Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Post.

Read more: Quillen: The voice of the GOP establishment – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_19881534#ixzz1liWjMMQd

Employment Report Showed Solid Improvements in January

JEC Weekly Economic Digest – February 7, 2012

Employment rose solidly in January…

Average weekly earnings rose last month…

The unemployment rate declined in January…

Click here for the full version of the Weekly Economic Digest.

By Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

That’s what’s on the rise: Management attempting to exercise control over their workers — in a brutal display of power. Give in to us or lose your paycheck right now.

February 6, 2012 |

Photo Credit: United Steelworkers

When a contract expires and the union and the company bargain over a new one, there are a few possibilities. In the majority of cases, after negotiation, they come to an agreement, in all likelihood involving compromises on both sides. If they can’t reach an agreement, a strike by workers is a possible outcome—but one that’s declining in frequency, "just one-sixth the annual level of two decades ago," Steven Greenhouse reports. Another outcome, or perhaps cause, of stalled negotiations is becoming more common, though: The lockout, which has:

… grown to represent a record percentage of the nation’s work stoppages, according to Bloomberg BNA, a Bloomberg subsidiary that provides information to lawyers and labor relations experts. Last year, at least 17 employers imposed lockouts, telling their workers not to show up until they were willing to accept management’s contract offer.

We’ve seen it in both the NFL and the NBA in the past year, of course. But in many cases, companies lock out workers who are struggling even to stay in the middle class, because they won’t give up the things that might put them in the middle class. Companies lock out workers to get them to give up their pensions, to pay more for health care, to accept pay cuts, to sacrifice job security. They rely on no one noticing (besides the workers, for whom their contempt is already clear), and on any public notice the lockouts do gain assigning blame at least equally to the workers—after all, shouldn’t they feel lucky just to have jobs, and be willing to make whatever concessions management demands? As Charles Pierce wrote of the NBA lockout:

…

READ MORE

KETK

Seven of his relatives work at the Carrier plant. "Some don’t even have plans," Jackson said. "They don’t know what they’re going to do." Tom Mullins of Tyler Economic Development says the average salary for Carrier employees is about $19 an hour.

<http://www.ketknbc.com/news/carrier-plant-closing-how-it-will-affect-employees-local-economy>

LEX18 Lexington KY News

A man is shot to death after a fight over the sale of a firearm. It happened on Poplar Court in Columbia. Officials say Edward Stickel, 42, was shot by Ralph Mercer, 60 at the home in Adair County. Stickel was shot in the chest, and was pronounced dead …

<http://www.lex18.com/news/adair-county-shooting-death-investigation>

Tue, 7 Feb 2012

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Shark attacks in the U.S. declined in 2011, but
worldwide fatalities reached a two-decade high, according to the
University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File report
released today.

http://news.ufl.edu/2012/02/07/shark-2012/