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Endgame in Afghanistan?

Steve Coll quoted in the NYT's Lede blog: "[T]he United States is essentially waging a proxy war against its own ally. The Taliban are a proxy of the government of Pakistan. We are an ally of the government of Pakistan. We are fighting the Taliban. In the end, the Taliban will be defeated strategically when the government of Pakistan makes a strategic decision that its future does not lie in partnership with Islamic extremists." Complete post: Cutting a Deal With the Taliban.

NYT Editorial - Pakistan Hesitates, Again

NYTimes.com: "Washington must also do more to help lessen tensions between Pakistan and India. That may be the best chance of persuading Islamabad that it can and must focus more of its troops and attention on fighting all of the Taliban."

'Langley Won't Tell Us'

"But any evaluation that merely blames the analysts, the intelligence-gatherers, or even both of their abilities to communicate misses the point: Major parts of the system itself are broken, and no surface-level changes will fix that. Foreign Policy:

Mercenaries, Robot Planes and the CIA Produce Lethal Mix for Secret Afghan War | World | AlterNet

"[Lurking behind the FOB Chapman deaths] and the man who caused them lay a bigger American war story that went largely untold. It was a tale of a new-style battlefield that the American public knows remarkably little about, and that bears little relationship to the Afghan War as we imagine it or as our leaders generally discuss it."AlterNet has the story.

FOB Chapman Attack Retaliation from N. Waziristan?

“[C.I.A. staff at FOB Chapman in Khost] have recently been on a big Haqqani binge,” said the Pentagon consultant. “I would be really shocked if the bombing on Wednesday wasn’t some kind of retaliation”, a New York Times report quotes a Pentagon consultant as saying.

NYT Correspondent Mark Mazzetti says "C.I.A. personnel regularly take foreign agents onto the base before sending them on intelligence collection missions ...across the border into Pakistan", and comments: "The fact that the agency is in effect running a war in Pakistan...." Read the whole story here.