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I hear President Obama has started taking violin lessons. Is Rome burning yet?

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"I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists,' she added.

And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs echoed her concerns. He said last night: 'The news over the past several days is very disturbing.'"

That's not echoing her concerns. It's noting that the news is disturbing. Which it is.

But laying this at the feet of Obama when Bush largely ignored this situation in favor of an endless and useless war in Iraq -- where there was no al-Quaeda previous to the US invasion and a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 is disingenous at best.

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Over the past 60-70 years we have been meddling in countries throughout the mideast. Our record of failure is by now more than clear. We have produced several failed states (Afghanistan, Somalia), installed dictatorships in several more (Iraq, Egypt, Jordan), played "divide and conquer" in others (Lebanon), played "oil games" throughout the region (Azerbaijan, Georgia), etc. On top of that we have supported severe zionist crimes against humanity in Palestine. It is no wonder resistance to our military and economic imperialism is growing.

I am often reminded of the words of a Ugandan foreign minister: "thank god no one was interested in our civil war - it would have been much worse". We should leave these countries alone instead of making matters worse.

U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans and so Bombs Them

President Barack Obama and other top officials in his administration have made it clear that there can be no military solution in Afghanistan, and that the non-military efforts to win over the Afghan population will be central to its chances of success.

The reality, however, is that U.S. military and civilian agencies lack the skills and training as well as the institutional framework necessary to carry out culturally and politically sensitive socio-economic programmes at the local level in Afghanistan, or even to avoid further alienation of the population. ...

...Barno recalled that he dramatically reduced reliance on airpower, because he regarded the Afghan tolerance for the U.S. military presence as a "bag of capital" that was used up "every time we used airpower or knocked down doors or detained someone in front of their family".

Barno’s policy of curbing airpower was abandoned by his successor, Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, from 2005 to 2007, and the number of airstrikes has continued to grow exponentially since 2005. Eikenberry was nominated by Obama to be ambassador to Afghanistan – an indication that the broad outlines of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan will continue to emphasise air attacks on suspected Taliban targets.

...Growing Afghan anger at the hundreds of civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes, often based on bad intelligence, has been exploited by insurgents across the country.

http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/04/22/us-lacks...

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