'NATO Has the Watches, We Have the Time'

• OCTOBER 26, 2009, 9:38 P.M. ET

By JAMES SHINN

Those of us in the Bush administration who were responsible for its "Afghan Strategy Review" kept our mouths shut when we handed over the document to the Obama transition team last fall. We didn't want to box in the new administration.

And when President Barack Obama and his advisers rolled out their own Afghanistan strategy on March 27, I was quietly pleased. It came to basically the same conclusion we had: The paramount goal was to squash terrorism through counterinsurgency and better governance in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised the press corps at the time that its strategy would be "fully resourced." Later, in August, Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment of the situation in Afghanistan was leaked. It was a road map to implement precisely the Obama strategy that was announced in March.

But one key element of both the Bush and Obama strategies is getting lost in the debate—that we must apply the military and economic resources for the time required to achieve our goals. As the Obama administration's March 27 White Paper notes, "There are no quick fixes to achieve U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

The average counterinsurgency war lasts>>>

Remains of Long-Missing WWII Airman Given to Family in California

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HIGHLAND, Calif. — For two decades after her son's bomber went down in the Pacific Ocean during World War II, Vella Stinson faithfully wrote the U.S. government twice a month to ask if his body had been found — or if anyone was looking.

The mother of six strapping boys went to her grave without the answer that has finally reached her two surviving sons 65 years later: the remains of Sgt. Robert Stinson are coming home.

Military divers recovered two pieces of leg bone from the wreckage of a B-24J Liberator bomber found at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of the island nation of Palau. DNA testing showed the femur fragments belonged to the 24-year-old flight engineer who died in combat on Sept. 1, 1944.

Stinson's remains arrived under U.S. Air Force escort Wednesday and will be buried Friday at Riverside National Cemetery with full military honors. In between, the body will be kept at a mortuary less than 100 yards from the home where Stinson grew up with his brothers.

"He's not someplace on a little island or at the bottom of the ocean. He's home," said Edward Stinson, who was 9 when his brother died.

For Robert Stinson, the journey home was far from a sure thing.>>>

Flying Imams Victory

Posted 06:49 PM ET

Homeland Security: A suspect Islamist group is gloating that a cash settlement in the so-called Flying Imams case is a "victory for civil rights." If it's a victory, it's one for future hijackers.

Three years ago, six Islamic clerics sued US Airways and Minneapolis airport police for discrimination and false arrest after they were bounced from a Phoenix-bound flight for behaving much like the 9/11 hijackers.

Some yelled "Allah, Allah, Allah," and changed their seats while asking for seat belt extensions they never used. Though situated throughout the cabin, the six men appeared to be acting in concert. Witnesses also said they loudly cursed the U.S.

Also raising flags, half of them had no checked baggage and what appeared to be one-way tickets.

The imams didn't seem to have a case — until that is, they got liberal federal judge Ann Montgomery to hear it. A Clinton appointee, she denied the defendants' request for dismissal.

And her ruling, strongly worded in favor of the plaintiffs, made it clear law enforcement wasn't immune from being sued. Convinced they wouldn't succeed at trial, the defendants settled.

The imams' attorney — a board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which financed the case — says the deal involves an undisclosed amount paid to his clients by airport police. Details are sealed. The airport authority issued a statement saying insurance limits its liability to $50,000.

"The settlement of this case is a clear victory for justice and civil rights," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.

These imams, whose leader admitted once supporting Osama bin Laden, are not the victims of discrimination. The victims are passengers who are now more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

The settlement threatens to have a chilling>>>

Thank You For Serving

Did Weapons Fail U.S. Troops During Afghanistan Assault?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a>>>

Obama's Nobel and His Obligation to Afghanistan

• OCTOBER 11, 2009, 4:55 P.M. ET

By BOB KERREY

In a wonderfully stunning decision, the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded our president its Peace Prize. They said the award was as much for the hope that he will contribute to a more peaceful world as it was for any specific accomplishment during his first nine months in office.

This is the same hope I had when I voted for President Barack Obama, contributed to him financially, and campaigned for him in a few states. I believed he could successfully manage the process of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. I believed he would help build a bridge to the Muslim world. And I believed he would bring his unique story to inspire us to overcome our divisiveness. I still hold fast to these beliefs, in spite of the fact that his presidency already seems to have brought out the worst in some.

By awarding the prize to Mr. Obama, the Nobel committee also surely hoped to influence the debate about U.S. policy in Afghanistan. I wish they had waited until the debate was settled here at home. My wish is based on a fear that American political leaders are about to talk themselves into breaking yet another foreign policy commitment.

In December 2006, President George W.>>>

A 'Necessary' War?

• OCTOBER 10, 2009

By PEGGY NOONAN

All in. All out. Double down. Withdraw. The language of the Afghanistan debate is stark, as seem the choices. But at least the debate has begun, forced by the blunt recent comments of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It is overdue. At the very least, less than a full airing of all the facts, realities, challenges and possibilities in that region shows insufficient respect and gratitude toward those we've put in harm's way.

Nobody, really, is certain what to do, or wherein lies wisdom. It isn't a choice between right and wrong or "clearly smart" versus "obviously stupid" so much as a choice between two hells, or more than two.

The hell of withdrawal is what kind of drama would fill the vacuum, who would re-emerge, who would be empowered, what Pakistan would look like with a newly redrawn reality in the neighborhood, what tremors would shake the ground there as the U.S. troops march out. It is the hell of a great nation that had made a commitment in retreat, abandoning not only its investment of blood and treasure but those on the ground, and elsewhere, who had one way or another cast their lot with us. It would involve the hell, too, of a U.N. commitment, an allied commitment, deflated to the point of collapse.

The hell of staying is equally clear, and vivid: more loss of American and allied troops, more damage to men and resources, an American national debate that would be a continuing wound and possibly a debilitating one, an overstretched military given no relief and in fact stretched thinner, a huge and continuing financial cost in a time when our economy is low. There is no particular guarantee of, or even a completely persuasive definition of, success. And Pakistan may blow anyway.

The debate is over which hell is less damaging>>>