I was wondering where all that opium money would turn up. Fortunately the UN is talking! it was used to save the bankers' sorry bums!
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLP65079620090125
UN crime chief says drug money flowed into banks
Sun Jan 25, 2009 9:17am EST

The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.
“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that “interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities,” Costa was quoted as saying. There were “signs that some banks were rescued in that way.”
Profil said Costa declined to identify countries or banks which may have received drug money and gave no indication how much cash might be involved. He only said Austria was not on top of his list, Profil said.
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huge hat tip as always to cryptogon.com - as kevin says "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise." hehehe

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Hongpong.com

Karzai is not much to talk about, but he's not being taken to task for good reasons.

War is coming soon.

Whatever the wish-list, Mr SecDef is pledging "only" about 12000 by summer, with more troop commitment decisions kicked down the line:

(from the NYT article above):

Mr. Obama is preparing to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan over the next two years, perhaps to more than 60,000 from about 34,000 now. But Mr. Gates indicated Tuesday that the administration would move slowly, at least for now. He outlined plans for an increase of about 12,000 troops by midsummer but cautioned that any decision on more troops beyond that might have to wait until late 2009, given the need for barracks and other infrastructure.

Now with the Nato/ISAF crowd pushing back mightily on more uniforms, Canada, Holland, etc., committed to decamp in two years, UK clearly on the fence, despite Gordon Brown's "pledges", Obama may well be in a holding pattern until all the reviews ordered up are in and he can get his head round what a clusterfuck he has inherited from Cheney/Bush. Predator flights/missile strikes and air-strikes essentially are low-cost (except to the civilians killed, but who in US administrations care about that aspect of the war?), and can be continued indefinitely, simply to keep one's hand in. Gates may well be Obama's "useful idiot" in the near-term, but ultimately to be cast aside as a symbol of a failed strategy, given his Freedom Medal, and sent off for some quality-time with his family. There simply is NO rational policy that embraces a wider war as a means to an end when that "end" is but one tile of an immensely complex mosaic, and one must hope that Barack Obama really will grasp the nettle and conclude likewise.
BTW, here is McClatchy on Gates' Congressional testimony Tuesday:

Gates testimony shows why Afghanistan is no cake walk

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday outlined a complicated and at times contradictory set of goals for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, in a Capitol Hill appearance that highlighted the challenges the administration faces in devising a new U.S. strategy there.

Giving his first congressional testimony under his new boss, President Barack Obama, Gates called the Afghan army and police the "exit ticket for all of us," yet he conceded that the Afghan government is too poor to support those forces long term.
...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/60867.html

And this, on the actual fighting:

U.S. Marines find Iraq tactics don't work in Afghanistan

DELARAM, Afghanistan — On a sunset patrol here in late December, U.S. Marines spotted a Taliban unit trying to steal Afghan police vehicles at a checkpoint. In a flash, the Marines turned to pursue, driving off the main road and toward the gunfire coming from the mountain a half mile away.

But their six-ton vehicles were no match for the Taliban pickups. The mine-resistant vehicles and heavily armored Humvees bucked and swerved as drivers tried to maneuver them across fields that the Taliban vehicles raced across. The Afghan police trailed behind in unarmored pick-up trucks, impatient about their allies' weighty pace.
...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/59479.html

or this, from Tom Ricks:

Inside an Afghan battle gone wrong: What happened at Wanat? (I)

Just before dawn last July 13, Taliban fighters attacked an outpost in eastern Afghanistan being established by U.S. Army soldiers and fought a short, sharp battle that left many American dead -- and many questions. But the U.S. military establishment, I've found after reviewing the Army investigation, dozens of statements given by soldiers to investigators, and interviews with knowledgeable sources, simply has not wanted to confront some bad mistakes on this obscure Afghan battlefield -- especially tragic because, as the interviews make clear, some of the doomed soldiers knew they were headed for potential disaster.

First, here's my account of what happened that day, drawn from the official investigation and other sources:

The 45 Americans, mainly from 2nd Platoon, Chosen Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, had begun building a patrol base in the Waygul River valley village of Wanat on July 8. There also were three Marines present, who were training Afghans, and 24 soldiers from the Afghan army. (The initial Army report said two Marines, but subsequent documents corrected this.) The platoon's leader was there the whole time, but the company commander was busy elsewhere and only arrived the day before the attack. None of their superiors visited the outpost during that time. Significantly, there was no overhead surveillance by unmanned aerial vehicles because of bad weather, according to Army documents.
...
(much more, by an experienced correspondent in the field)

http://tinyurl.com/c52ve4

Whatever else can distinguish Obama from Bush, one outstanding difference is that Obama can and will read, and not only that but can draw meaningful conclusions from what he reads (and hears). And frankly, if he doesn't understand that Afghanistan will be THE albatross around his neck at the end of his first term if hard decisions aren't taken pronto, then he's in the wrong job.

doubts emerge? where has Mr Gray been? lol

ANALYSIS-Doubts emerge over US troop boost for Afghanistan
29 Jan 2009 06:00:24 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan enjoys broad U.S. political support, from President Barack Obama on down, but some analysts -- both in and outside government -- are not convinced by the plans.

They question whether extra soldiers and Marines will be able to stabilize the country and suggest doubling the number of U.S. troops to more than 60,000 could increase resentment among Afghans toward foreign forces.

More broadly, they also question whether the aim of building a modern democratic Afghanistan is achievable or necessary to protect U.S. national security and whether it is a good use of an overstretched U.S. military.

Obama, who discussed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with top military officials at the Pentagon on Wednesday, will have to decide how much to heed their concerns as his new administration inherits the Bush-era conflicts.

"I think that Barack Obama would do well to think carefully before he makes Afghanistan into Obama's War," said Andrew Bacevich, a retired U.S. Army colonel who is a professor of international relations at Boston University.

Insurgent violence in Afghanistan has risen sharply in the past two years to its highest level since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for harboring al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

"We don't want to see Afghanistan be a place in which violent Islamic radicals intent on killing Americans have sanctuary. Beyond that, we don't have any serious interests in Afghanistan," Bacevich said.

"Do we need to transform Afghanistan politically, economically and socially in order to achieve those modest interests?"

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