nerdgirl

Homo sapiens sapiens (us) direct ancestor is Australopithecus spp. not Neanderthals. Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and modern humans shared a same common ancestor from which they diverted >500k years ago. Modern humans also did not descend from apes (or monkeys or chimpanzees or bonobos; the latter two are the closest genetically). Modern humans descended from Australopithecus spp. The evolutionary lines of chimpanzees and humans split 5-7 million years ago. So yes, Dr. Paabo's work (if quoted corectly above) supports the theory of evolution. Theory in a precise usage does not mean 'notional guess' or 'hypothesis.' On one hand this would not surprise me - modern humans and neanderthals speciated 100s of thousands of years ago. So it would be unlikely to have 100% homogeneity; as it would be with any non-identical twins. Otoh, modern humans and apes, chimpanzees, bononbos (still not a direct ancestor) share >98% of our DNA. We share >80% of our DNA with mice. We share something like 40 or 50% of our DNA with bananas. If there were no similarities with Neandethals that would be remarkable! /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

So what’s *your* opinion on President Obama taking up GEN Petreaus’ suggestion? And why? Excerpts from Sunday NY Times interview/article cited in the VOA piece “Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban”: “‘If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq,’ Mr. Obama said. “At the same time, he acknowledged that outreach may not yield the same success. ‘The situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex,’ he said. ‘You have a less governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. Those tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross purposes, and so figuring all that out is going to be much more of a challenge.’ [dang … sounds a lot like what I’ve been writing, which frankly doesn’t strike me as extraordinary prescience but cognizance of history, military strategy, and a lil’ bit of cultural knowledge.] “For American military planners, reaching out to some members of the Taliban is fraught with complexities. For one thing, officials would have to figure out which Taliban members might be within the reach of a reconciliation campaign, no easy task in a lawless country with feuding groups of insurgents.” [aka knowledge of the Human Terrain – nerdgirl] Via satellite from FOB Salerno in Khost province, Afghanistan Briefing from Friday: “COL John Johnson, Commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, speaks via satellite with reporters at the Pentagon, providing an operational update.” He emphasizes the need for successful US/NATO strategic communications (7:40 & again at 25:20) in the reality of effective strategic communications by the insurgents w/r/t Afghan population. Sites 20% increase in insurgent activity over last year and 30% increase in insurgent attacks over the last few months (the latter he largely attributes to a mild winter.) (~17 min) Notes 1:115 ratio of Security Forces to population (5000 MNF, 10000 Afghan NA, 9000 police forces, 5000 border police) (18:29) Summary articles from Defenselink.mil: “ U.S. Commander Decries ‘Barbaric’ Enemy Actions in Afghanistan” and “ Securing Afghanistan-Pakistan Border is High Priority, Officer Says” And from today’s BBC: “NATO 'struggling in Afghan south'” quoting GEN David McKiernan. The politics of that interview may resonate more fully in the UK. Astute comments, im-ever-ho w/r/t why *how* and by *what means* (tactics driven by strategy) is important w/r/t “talking with the Taliban” from Guardian UK: “‘…the aim must be to ‘protect the population’, not just win land.” [And not just to “kill the terrorists,” who we struggle to differentiate from the Afghan population ... sometimes because the Taliban-to-Afghan population spectrum is narrow ... ] “The real problem currently is that the Taliban has been able to appropriate the role of defenders of the culture, religion and political interests of the Pashtun rural conservative constituency in the south and east of the country. The gaping hole in the western strategy in Afghanistan is the lack of a political vehicle that would allow this constituency to feel their interests were represented in Kabul, and thus that they could enter the political process and stop supporting the fighters. In Vietnam and Algeria military battles were won, but the fundamental lack of legitimacy at the heart of the political setup undermined all other efforts. Obama did not talk about this particular very thorny problem.” Legitimacy … we’re back to strategic communications & SSTR, eh? (Is it like a tango we do ... or maybe more like a Shakespearian tragedy? Hamlet V ii.) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Okay, so some are complaining about the DMV; a sizable majority (71%) by the poll above, don’t seem to have encountered the same problems. Why is that? We’re a federal system + DC: 51 different systems. There are bound to be differences in efficiency. The discussion needs more fidelity by State … & I suspect by rural versus urban. How does efficiency (or lack thereof) compare to setting up or disconnecting cable service? Arranging cable repair? Renewing or cancelling cell phone service? McKinsey & Associates found that there are optimal (read: profitable) types of calls that it is beneficial to speed through automated calling to a real person, e.g., potential new customers That’s a business’ prerogative and, in today’s competitive world, should be a business goal. (Businesses exist to make money.) For example, see a beneficial (to the company and notionally to the customer) application by Nexaweb, a software/It company headquartered in Burlington MA. The flip side of what Kinsey and Associates found was that there are other types of customer queries/complaints that from a business-perspective, it was most beneficial for customers to be put on hold as long as possible, because some percentage will give up. And more importantly, in the long run, for a whole host of reasons (ranging from lack of other viable options to apathy/laziness), the vast majority of customers who were temporarily miffed did not stop being customers, e.g., inertia wins. Now, I’m sure that skydivers, being the intensely passionate and high-convictions sort that we are, are among that minority who do persevere every single time and who do change services (exercise consumer option). But even if we are, it’s a numbers game for which there is little benefit to the company to change for us (cuz we’re you’re a smaller percentage). In may, in fact, cost a company to do so, as there would be some commensurate loss of potential profitable new customers or current customers wanting new services. There’s nothing inherently normatively ‘good’ or ‘bad’ about that – that’s business. So what does a DMV (or Secretary of State office, or whatever it’s called in your State) do? What’s driven some (71% of experiences) to be characterized as “run efficiently”? And 29% to not be? It sounds like some have figured out that speeding simple renewals is easy and efficient … or that in some areas ‘with-a-cup-of-coffee-and-conversation’ is just fine. That sounds pretty nice, actually.

Last week the director of the National Cybersecurity Center resigned citing interference from the NSA. In his resignation letter, Mr. Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, asserted that the “NSA effectively controls DHS cyber [security] efforts … during the past year the NCSC received only 5 weeks of funding …” and cited cultural differences between the civilian-controlled and civilian-network-oriented In the WSJ article (first link above), it was noted that “Some Homeland Security officials said Mr. Beckstrom’s criticism stemmed from personality clashes and an inability to adapt to the way business is done in Washington.” National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23, signed by President Bush in Janaury 2008, designated the DHS as lead agency for domestic cybersecurity and interagency coordination of cybersecurity. The NSA/CSS is a Title 50 agency (i.e., it’s part of the intelligence community) with the “core missions to protect U.S. national security systems and to produce foreign signals intelligence information.” By law, the NSA is supposed to limit its surveillance to foreign nationals and non-domestic signals (there have been some recent exceptions to this). So what do you think: should civilian cybersecurity, which extends to the networks used by the private sector, be led by DHS, NSA, or something else? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Maybe I'm reading it differently, but doesn't that example show that the system worked? As I recall the Mirena IUD was approved by the FDA in 2001. It is still available (another source from Jan 07) and paid for by Medicaid, yes? (Like commercial/private sector providers, Medicaid has a formulary that determines what will be paid and what won’t, as you know.) And the Mirena IUD is still available on health-based, not purely money-based reasons, yes? Sounds like the system worked: metaphorical ‘bean-counters’ proposed a rule-change based purely on economic models; doctors said no, that’s not a complete picture of the issue. Doctors with the best interest of patients well being and public health advocates presided. Opposition, or probably more accurately issues of prioritizing economic benefit over women's health, has also come from the private insurance industry: “According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a not-for-profit group specializing in reproductive health issues, half [i.e., half don’t-nerdgirl] of traditional indemnity policies or managed care plans that allow a choice of providers cover prescription contraceptives, including IUDs. However, virtually all cover the pricier, riskier, irreversible surgical option, which nets doctors $1,950 on average, compared with only $345 for IUD insertion and related office visits, according to the Reproductive Health and Technologies Project.” Opposition also came from the folks who are opposed to Medicaid in general, Medicaid paying for any reproductive health-related services, or any form of birth control. Remember the DHHS draft rule change effort last summer that would have re-defined -- non-medically -- oral contraceptives and IUDs as abortion devices? That had the potential, if enacted, to severely restrict or eliminate all access to oral contraceptives and IUDs by Medicaid recipients. And that was neither driven by economic models nor medicine. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Other than [FallingOsh], who seemed to respond earnestly and non-reactively, do any of the conservative leaning folks (including those who self-identify as moderate libertarians) see any validity in the *content* of the critique? I don't know who "Tina" is or if there is even a real "Tina." I do know former Rep Mickey Edwards (R-OK), who is one of my favorite Republicans – & there are quite few favorites

I think there are a lot of very interesting questions in here: -- why does the DMV (or whatever it's called in your State) still have a bad reputation? -- assuming the DMV was inefficient (we've not put forth any metrics), why has it changed? (In Michigan, as I understand, a lot of the changes were enacted after the guy who had been Secretary of State finally retired after being there for 20+(?) years). -- why are some States efficient and some not? -- what are rural versus suburban versus urban differences? Imo, the disparity across the county illustrates something that does relate to healthcare: we value a federal system over efficiency. One system rather than 51 (including DC now) would be more efficient and cost-effective based purely on simplicity. But the American people have valued a federal system. Sometimes cost should not be the only or even most important factor, again imo. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

There have been a few notable exceptions to the notion that private contracting is more efficient: (1) The CIA Inspector General found that a civilian employee costs the government an average of $126,500 annually including salary & benefits, while the average contract employee doing comparative work costs $250,000 annually. The IG’s findings were reported in the December 2007 House-Senate conference report on the fiscal 2008 Intelligence Authorization Bill. A number of folks have been concerned less w/r/t pure monetary costs than the less tangible consequence of having a reported up to 70% of the National Clandestine Service filled by contractors. Average tenure of an intelligence analyst is less than 7 years – they take their TS/SCI’s and go make a lot more money. (2) IRS collection by federal employees was found to be more cost effective than private sector. (3) US Air Force Air Logistics Programmed Depot Maintenance (PDM) found privatization of repair activities on F-15, C-130, C-5 and C-17 aircraft was so inefficient and cost more than federal employees that WR-ALC 402d MXW reversed the decision and has been hiring since summer 2007. (4) Even Eric Prince, former CEO, of Xe (nee Blackwater) acknowledged in the Q&A period of his Congressional testimony that there was no data supporting the perceived value to the taxpayer of contracting Blackwater versus employing federal workers in Iraq for private security. Are you referring to Missile Defense, Future Combat Systems (76% over-run in one year alone), Joint Strike Fighter, the F/A-18 Navy fighter, or the two chemical demilitarization programs, or the Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR)? Sometimes cost alone should not be the determining factor, in my opinion. While there are instances in which private companies do perform more efficiently, they are not _all_ instances and, perhaps, more importantly, there may be instances in which other factors are more important than lowest cost, e.g., civilian nuclear safety, air traffic control, nuclear submarine operation. Too much government stifles innovation and competition; too little results in a variety of ills, ranging from “thalidomide” babies to failed states. The ‘trick’ is finding the right mix, figuring out which ones are better to be more conservative on (e.g., intelligence - on the side of federal), and creating flexible programs that can respond as situations and needs change. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Actually, higher obesity rate (& smoking rate) should correlate with *decreased* cost overall for a national healthcare system. Sounds counter-intuitive at first, eh? Healthy (non-smoking, non-obese) people cost more over a lifetime. Perhaps not per year … but they live longer and the amassed cost of living longer and diseases of old age make them cost more, e.g., 10 years at $5K is still less than 14 years at $1K + 1 year at $50K. Health care costs increase as one get older. If you die young, one avoids long-term care (that costs more) and diseases of old age, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, etc. Primary Data “Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure” “The obese cohort has the highest health-care costs for diabetes and musculoskeletal diseases compared to the other cohorts. Lifetime costs for cancers other than lung cancer are equal for all cohorts. Despite differences in life expectancy, the costs for stroke are similar for all cohorts. The most pronounced difference in costs occurs in the category ‘costs of other diseases,’ which is purely the result of different life expectancies. “Despite the higher annual costs of the obese and smoking cohorts, the healthy-living cohort incurs highest lifetime costs, due to its higher life expectancy, as shown in Table 1 (attached). Furthermore, the greatest differences in health-care costs are not caused by smoking- and obesity-related diseases, but by the other, unrelated, diseases that occur as life-years are gained. Therefore, successful prevention of obesity and smoking would result in lower health-care costs in the short run (assuming no costs of prevention), but in the long run they would result in higher costs.” Secondary accounts, Science Daily “Lifetime Medical Costs Of Obese People Actually Lower Than Costs For Healthy And Fit, Mathematical Model Shows NPR “Study: Healthy People Cost Governments More” MSNBC “Actually, it's a long, healthy life that costs more” The model is purely monetary driven and does not make attempts to value quality of life or opportunity costs either from longer, healthier years, on public health concerns, or from quality medical care. Nonetheless, it does suggest that the perceived correlation between American “cultural” tendencies and healthcare cost needs more examination. And while I agree that American "cultural" tendencies does suggest certainly suggest variables worth investigating, a limited set (there are others beside smoking and obesity, we just fixate on those two, imo) of behavioral traits do not appear to be the (an?) independent variable in determining healthcare costs. [semi-facetious/farcical] Us non-smoking, healthy-eaters -- & vegetarians are worse , stair-climbers, should get down off our high-horses … because on average we’re going to cost the healthcare system more in the long run. T he economically responsible thing to do is to die at age 65. (Logan’s Run anyone?) [/semi-facetious/farcical] Now am I going to start smoking, stop eating healthy, and stop climbing stairs? No. I like having a resting heart rate in the 50s. When I had more free time and was running a lot more I tried to get it down to the 40s (never made it). I’m going to maintain those behavioral choices not because I irresponsibly want to cost more in healthcare (statistically) but because, admittedly quite selfishly, I like climbing mountains and trekking to really big ones in other countries. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Being the nerdy-sort , I read the link. “Relying on widely accepted state and national statistics on the unemployment rate, industry employment, business activity, and worker wages, the study examined trends before and after implementation of the minimum wage and its January 1, 2006, augmentation to see if any negative impacts could be discerned. We were unable to find any negative impacts whatsoever. “Rather than seeing employers flee the state, the number of private establishments in the state grew at a faster pace in the year following minimum wage implementation than it had grown in some years. We could find no evidence that low-wage workers were worse off than prior to the new minimum-wage coverage. “After Florida imposed its wage hike, the unemployment situation improved.” Unless my reading is way off -- & I encourage interested others to read the short (3 pages) linked pdf -- the data supports Carmen's assertions. Is there data and analysis from California or other State's 'living wage' acts? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Is "fastest" the best? Optimal? Or most effective? I can think of a number of things that can be done fast, but have better and more preferable outcomes if speed is not the sole metric. And most of them aren't salacious. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Interesting – and purely speculative on my part – potential connection between this thread and one from early February on Closing Manas AB in Kyrgystan. The timing may be purely coincidental (if anything in dealing with the Russians is 'purely coincidental) but nicely illustrates, im-ever-ho, the importance of prioritizing strategic goals over short-term tactics. While the US continues to negotiate with the Kyrgyz government for renewed access to the air field, “In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. on March 4, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev indicated that the Kyrgyz government was open to ‘any new proposals from the US government aimed at stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan.’ To strike any new deal, however, Bakiyev said that the United States would have to show Kyrgyzstan more ‘respect.’ Bakiyev signed a bill to close the air base on February 20.” … the prospects don’t look good, however: “The Kyrgyz parliament voted overwhelmingly Friday to evict U.S. allies from a key military base, after ordering U.S. forces out last month. “Lawmakers voted to cancel an agreement that allows 11 allies to use the Manas air base, a key staging point for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.” An alternate supply route has been opened: “First non-military rail containers for Afghanistan have crossed Russia” “ NATO members are looking for alternative supply routes for their troops fighting the Taliban as an alternative to using Pakistan, where Western military convoys are repeatedly attacked by Taliban militants. “… the first U.S. cargo shipment is 100 containers large, and was sent to Afghanistan by rail via the Port of Riga. The United States Embassy in Latvia informed that approximately 20 to 30 train cars per week will be sent to Afghanistan via Latvia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. “The newspaper Biznes&Baltija reported previously that Russia agreed to be a transit country for the cargo from the United States after George Bush was recently replaced by Barack Obama as United States President. One of Russia's conditions, however, is that the cargo cannot be military related. The cargo will be made up of camouflage, food products and civil equipment. “As Biznes&Baltija reported, if the freight transit through these countries is successful, it could increase to 700 containers per week for Afghanistan.” It was also reported in Janes Defence “US military opens transit route between Russia and Afghanistan.” Probably reported elsewhere, the latter was my first reading. If the two (US reconsidering deployment of 10 interceptors missiles to Poland and opening up of supply line to Afghanistan) are connected, which again is purely speculative and somewhat unlikely as SecDef Gates has acknowledged discussions with the Russians over the last year, it’s an interesting grand strategic bargain. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Iirc, there are multiple forms of please, but it's not used frequently, which is a Russian cultural characteristic. One of my Russian friends quips to me that if ones observes someone smiling in the Russian subway they're either drunk, insane, or an American. (We smile a lot ... I think that's a good thing.

In incredibly broad strokes, to which I could cite exceptions, much of the rest-of-the-world™ does business differently than the US, e.g., bribes as standard practice. Competitive bidding and selection processes are opaque. Family arrangements or relations trump the concept of merit or best proposal. The US DoD learned a lot about doing business in post-Communist Russia through construction of the Shchuch'ye chemical weapons demilitarization facility (>$1B). GAO report on DOD Needs More Reliable Data to Better Estimate the Cost and Schedule of the Shchuch’ye Facility. In a few cases, folks (Russian contractors) who made low-offers/bids would disappear. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Isn't "thank you" 3 syllables too? "Spa-si-ba." As in "nyet, piva spasiba" ... even tho' in that construction we would use "please", I was taught to use 'spasiba' ... when trying to communicate 'no, I really don't want vodka at 10AM, but I will take a beer (still at 10AM).' /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

From the Pentagon Channel, comments from SecDef Gates on on-going (“talked with the Russians before”) discussions with Russia on missile defense, including the direct connection to Iran: “Obviously one approach would be if we [US & Russia] could persuade the Iranians not to go forward with their ballistic missile program, if we [the US & Russia] do that together. “Another alternative is incorporating them in a partnership that makes them [Russia] a full partner in missile defense.” It was also part of the discussions with the French Defense Minister, noted in press briefing btw SecDef Gates & MOD Morin: "I told the Russians, a year ago ... here's the cause of the concern, what can we do together to deal with the potential threat." (starts at 15:19) (Interesting questions on France’s involvement in ISAF, imo.) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

We had a bit of a discussion on that as a tangent in another thread. I agree that the causative factors are unresolved/equivocal at this point. Execution rates don't explain away the differences. E.g., when the number of prisoners is normalized by incarceration rates (to take into account 1.31B versus 296M populations of China & USA, respectively), China would have had to execute 8.27M prisoners a year (rather than 10k) to match the US incarceration rate. China has 1.55M prisoners at an incarceration rate of 118 prisoners per 100k people. Adjusting China's prison population to match the US incarceration rate (738 prisoners per 100k people, per US Bureau of Justice statistics, part of DOJ) corresponds to 9.82M Chinese prisoners. 9.82M prisoners – 10k prisoners executed – 1.55M current prisoners =’s 8.26M prisoners less by rate including the executed ones (per AI's estimate). You could do something similar w/Saudi Arabia and I strongly suspect the results would not be disimilar. Now those are just the numbers ... and I encourage someone to double-check my math; I just back-of-the-enveloped it. And to be explicit, which I'm confident you and a good number of folks realize … but am concerned some might not …, that does not mean anything w/r/t causality. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Interesting hypothesis ... My speculation is that as long as Poland gets some part of the foreign aid promised, they would *prefer* more stable relations between the US and Russia, particularly as Russia has indicated that if the 10 actual interceptors are deployed to Poland, that they will point interceptors -- 'brand-spanking new' RS-24s with sophisticated multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles, which look just like ICBMs ... because they are ballistic missiles (which I'm confident you know) and that Russia claims can penetrate NMD -- at Poland. Have there been any comments from Poland to the Obama-Med? NATO? (I honestly don't know at this point.) One argument (there are many more than just 2) is that it's a brilliant move on President Obama's part: it weakens Russia's position. It's also not a new move. Back in November, then-President-elect Obama indicated he might not pursue the deployment of the 10 interceptors. I suspect that the Poles want the foreign aid, in the form of military cooperation and modernization ($$$$ & stuff) of Polish defense capabilities. That's their angle, imo. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Nerdgirl Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Concur. And in many ways I'm responding more generally than to you specifically ... Do folks understand that there is a difference between classified information (CONFIDENTIAL/SECRET/TOP SECRET) and diplomatically sensitive and For Official Use Only (FOUO)? Maybe ya'all do and I'm being dense. It's not apparent to me tho' ... or I'm being pendantic? (If it were precision of terminology related to guns, it would be an issue.) /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The top issue: Prioritizing US foreign policy interests. From a realist perspective US strategic foreign policy interests supersede everything else. If the President and his NSC (led by a retired Marine general if we remember) consider halting Iranian nuclear weapons capability (the secondary issue) more important for US strategic interests than perpetuating an destabilizing, economically-wasteful (the Polish people don’t want missile defense; the Polish government wants US money to maintain a station at now-defunct Redzikowo air base without deploying any interceptors – great deal for *them,* e.g., $720M to “prepare” the base [read: fix what’s fallen apart at the old Cold War-era Eastern bloc airbase] agreement brokered by the previous administration that does not counter what the last administration considered the top WMD threat to the US homeland (nuclear terrorism, i.e., the tertiary issue) or this administration is likely to concur – yea! (70% of Czechs don’t want the radar system deployed in their country.) That’s the argument from realist, US strategic interest perspective. If one wants to argue from a neo-liberal institutionalist perspective – that agreements made by previous administrations take precedence (not the stance I would have thought for you … but it’s nice to be surprised

One needs to pull apart the ISI and Wahabi funders concept. Different aspects. Worst case if the US decided to overtly challenge the ISI or invade Pakistan: al Qa'eda returns to a Taliban-controlled (100%) Afghanistan. Re-establishes base of operations. Civilian-controlled government in Pakistan is taken over by radical Islamists. Radical Islamists give al Qa'eda one of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the codes for the PALs or PAL-like devices. The few ISI checks on Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) are removed. LeT antagonizes India into a nuclear exchange over Kashmir. That's a *very* worst case scenario. I'd need to think about it more before I suggest probability or recommendations. I would not recommend the US pursue such action, however. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Exactly the same, no. GEN Petraeus has given an outline of the strategy he plans to pursue. The increase in troops has been authorized by President Obama. Ideas under discussion are FOUO. The official ISAF new strategy document has yet to be delivered, afaik. There will be similarities, yes. But the execution of tactics will be different if only because the countries are very different w/r/t infrastructure, population, population distribution, information & communications technology, GDP. I'm not; LTC Peters, as smart as he is, is criticizing the authorization of 17k more troops and application of COIN. Which illustrates that smart people can disagree. Agree. I also strongly suspect that if the military and civilian leadership had not requested the authorization of additional forces, that he would not have done so. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

And that's what I really don't get. Bottom line, who cares about the Afghan people? The Afghan people have nothing to do with AQ's capabilities. To some extent, that's true. As al Qa'eda's core (when you wrote "AQ", I think "AQ Khan") is likely in Pakistan. The explicit and tacit support of the population enables al Qa'eda to hide, to conduct operations, to exist. Decline in security outside of Kabul allows the Taliban to re-assert authority/control over 72% of Afghanistan. It's the core of counterinsurgency theory -- what was employed in Iraq starting in 2006. Some argue then-MG or LG Odierno (I forget which) employed COIN tactics prior to the official 'surge'. Implementing and executing US strategic objectives is a lot easier when they’re not shooting at you, (marg’s 16-word distilled synopsis of COIN theory ). "Clear, hold, and build" + other factors I described here previously. I don't understand the question. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

To some extent yes, hence the emphasis on the human terrain, by me and that guy with the PhD in international affairs from Princeton. And at the same times, LTC Peters selectively (?) ignores the 1960s and 1970s in Kabul, Herat, Kandahar, and other areas, and he does not acknowledge domestic anti-fundamentalist groups within Afghanistan that have persevered for over 30 years against the Soviets and against the Taliban, e.g., RAWA and others. Concur with LTC Peters' recognition/acknowledgement that efforts to force their culture to mimic ours will be futile. At the same time, LTC Peters' description is of the Taliban "culture" (I'm hesistant to call that culture) forced on the population. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying