Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy: Protect the cities and cede the countryside to the Taliban; Update: Who feeds whom?

This makes perfect sense to me — as a political strategy. Militarily, it sounds like they’re creating another Lebanon, where Hezbollah dominates the south of the country but by and large leaves Beirut alone (aside from the occasional advance to remind the government who’s boss). If you think having U.S. drones in the sky over Taliban-controlled areas will keep Al Qaeda out — which hasn’t happened in the Pakistani tribal areas, although I guess hope springs eternal — then fair enough. Politica

Ed Links

Some new education-related links: David Brooks on the willingness of the Obama-Duncan team to push radical school reform Elena Silva on re-organising teachers’ work to make schools more effective (use of teams, integrating on-the-job training, removing needless admin tasks). And a link that is neither ed-related or new, but which I realised I’ve never blogged about. Ian Harper’s 30-minute lecture on Australian economic history is a corker. One for econ-poddies everywhere.

Greed and Corruption of The Washington and Wall Street Crowd

Usually the first place we look to for blame in the current mess we find ourselves in as a nation is to the President. First of all neither President Bush nor currently President Obama got us in this mess. Yes they should have seen the need to slow down the train before the crash, but what about the Senators, the Congressmen and others in high positions that were aware of the bad decisions being made, yet made no effort to stop the train. What would cause intelligent people to just tur

Obama’s “Consequence Management Response Force”

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — they are now deployed right here in the good ol’ US of A. Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command (NORCOM), as an on-call federa

OBAMA’S CZARS

OBAMA’S CZARS CZAR Czar Position Summary Richard Holbrooke Afghanistan Czar Ultra liberal anti gun former Gov. of New Mexico. Pro Abortion and legal drug use. Ed Montgomery Auto recovery Czar Black radical anti business activist. Affirmative Action and Job Preference for blacks. Univ of Maryland Business School Dean teaches US business has caused world poverty.ACORN board member.Communist DuBois Club member. Jeffrey Crowley AI