President Obama sees the need to continue the polices of the Bush Administration in fighting terrorists in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. His foolishness about closing Guantanamo to satisfy his liberal constituency without a plan to deal with the prisoners smacks of political opportunism, rather than sound policy.
Meanwhile, saying little publicly, Obama, Clinton and Holbrooke seem to be working their private channels to step up the killing of terrorist leadership via drones. But wait, don't their liberal backers believe that killing terrorists merely creates more terrorists?
The time will come when American forces, in addition to Special Operations, will be placed on the ground in force in this part of Pakistan to go after the leaders that they don't kill with drones. Some Army Special Ops troops are there now as advisers to Pakistani troops. Obviously, the Pakistanis are unwilling or unable to do it on their own.
A friend of mine likens the actions in the 'tribal areas' of Pakistan as 'another Vietnam.' That implies we will be mired for years, then ultimately give up trying to win. I hope not.
"...While the administration has not publicly criticized the Pakistanis, several American officials said in interviews in recent days that they believe appeasing the militants would only weaken Pakistan’s civilian government. Mr. Holbrooke said in the interview that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others would make clear in private, and in detail, why they were so concerned about what was happening in Swat, the need to send more Pakistani forces to the west, and why the deteriorating situation in the tribal areas added to instability in Afghanistan and threats to American forces.
Past efforts to cut deals with the insurgents failed, and many administration officials believe that they ultimately weakened the Pakistani government.
But Obama administration officials face the same intractable problems that the Bush administration did in trying to prod Pakistan toward a different course. Pakistan still deploys the overwhelming majority of its troops along the Indian border, not the border with Afghanistan, and its intelligence agencies maintain shadowy links to the Taliban even as they take American funds to fight them...
...American Special Operations troops based in Afghanistan have also carried out a number of operations into Pakistan’s tribal areas since early September, when a commando raid that killed a number of militants was publicly condemned by Pakistani officials. According to a senior American military official, the commando missions since September have been primarily to gather intelligence."
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