In the past two years, Swat has been caught up in the throes of a violent insurgency that has repelled tourists and is forcing locals to manage their lives around curfews and bans – and prompting many to leave the area.

The latest violence struck Wednesday, when militants attacked and destroyed a police station, capturing – and later releasing – some 30 paramilitary soldiers and policemen. A Taliban spokesman said the Taliban had gotten promises from the men that they would quit their jobs.

The Taliban advised policemen to advertise their names in a local paper if they quit.

Police officers who are not complying are paying a heavy price. In the last 10 months, more than 100 policemen have been killed in Swat, a district of 1.7 million people, by militant attacks. Many were kidnapped and then killed, their bodies publicly displayed.

As a result, nearly 800 policemen – half the authorized force in Swat – have either resigned or gone on long leave. Only one of the 600 recruits trained by the military at the Punjab Regimental Centre in Mardan volunteered to serve in what is becoming known as the "valley of death," according to a local newspaper.

From last month:

It is a classic South Asian catch-22, which allows Lashkar to continue functioning with only cosmetic restrictions, whose main function is to impress the US. Yet the fact remains that until firm action is taken against all such groups, and training camps are closed down, the slow collapse of the Pakistani state will continue, and with it the safety of Western interests in the region.

In Pakistan, Swat Valley police give up in face of Taliban attacks

While the attention of the US public and the news media here has been consumed (understandably enough) by the congressional debate over the economic stimulus plan, America's war in Afghanistan has nearly collapsed because of logistical problems.

...

The president was concerned by a lack of strategy at his first meeting with Gates and the US joint chiefs of staff last month in "the tank", the secure conference room in the Pentagon. He asked: "What's the endgame?" and did not receive a convincing answer.

From George Friedman, a year ago:

The endgame of the US-jihadist war always had to be played out in Pakistan. Any hope of defeating the Taliban, or of reaching some sort of accommodation, depends on isolating them from Pakistan. So long as the Taliban have sanctuary and logistical support from Pakistan, transferring all coalition troops in Iraq to Afghanistan would have no effect.

From yesterday:

We should probably tell you that the full title of this game is Zombies! Apocalypse - Massive Multiplayer Online Zombies Massacre, even though that's basically given away the point of it all.

Obama May Postpone Afghan Surge

Graeme Wood, for The Atlantic:

The city has suffered a killing spree of prominent citizens this year, in what many observers think is the Taliban’s attempt to sow fear among influential Kandaharis.

Uneasy sleeps the mullah who keeps the cloak.

The cloak might cure disease, end hunger, and anoint kings. But bringing security to Kandahar may be beyond its powers.

From Wood's previous report:

“Is the boy a Talib?” I asked. “Future Talib,” he said.

From the scene of an easier problem:

"Mom, we killed women on the street today. We killed kids on bikes. We had no choice."

Security Blanket

George Friedman:

The Taliban didn’t wait long to test Barack Obama.

What we need in Afghanistan is intelligence, and special operations forces and air power that can take advantage of that intelligence. Fighting terrorists requires identifying and destroying small, dispersed targets. We would need far fewer forces for such a mission than the number that are now deployed.

Winding down the conventional war while increasing the covert one will demand a cultural change in Washington. The Obama administration seems to prefer the conventional route of putting more troops on the ground. That would be a feasible strategy if supply lines to Afghanistan were secure. The loss of that bridge yesterday demonstrates very clearly that they are not.

Afghan Supplies, Russian Demands

George Friedman analyzes the Uncoupling in his weekly report.

Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists?

In contrast to Coll, he sees the Taliban as essentially Afghan:

It is important to remember that al Qaeda was separate from the Taliban; the former was a multinational force, while the Taliban were an internal Afghan political power.

He writes about the Taliban's hold on the people:

The tribes have long memories, and they know that foreigners don’t stay very long. Betting on the United States and Karzai does not strike them as prudent.

To anyone still harboring hopes of Victory, he is conclusive:

There is no conceivable force the United States can deploy to pacify Afghanistan.

The United States can exhaust itself attacking minor targets based on poor intelligence. It won’t get anywhere.

Needless to say Friedman is skeptical of the emerging Obama/Petraeus Afghan surge. Ultimately the only workable strategy is Uncoupling:

We expect that the United States will separate the two conflicts. The cost of failure in Afghanistan is simply too high and the connection to counterterrorist activities too tenuous for the two strategies to be linked.

Strategic Divergence: The War Against the Taliban and the War Against Al Qaeda

It could be that sending 30,000 more troops is throwing money and lives down a rat hole.

There is often a mismatch between what we see when we look at our children, and what is really there.

In India, a "liberal" father is one who allows his children to choose whom they want to marry.

Maybe fault is like gravity, built into the universe, and we should be putting quarks and muons on trial instead of the creatures they combine to form.

In prison, nothing is more depressing than an empty mailbox.

Mr. Dalrymple goes to Pakistan.

The situation here could hardly be more grim.

Members of the Taliban already control over 70 percent of Afghanistan, up from just over 50 percent in November 2007. The blowback from the Afghan conflict in Pakistan is more serious still.

The most alarming manifestation of this was the ease with which a highly trained jihadi group, almost certainly supplied and provisioned in Pakistan, probably by the nominally banned Lashkar-e-Taiba -- an organization that aims to restore Muslim rule in Kashmir -- attacked neighboring India in November.

It is a classic South Asian catch-22, which allows Lashkar to continue functioning with only cosmetic restrictions, whose main function is to impress the US. Yet the fact remains that until firm action is taken against all such groups, and training camps are closed down, the slow collapse of the Pakistani state will continue, and with it the safety of Western interests in the region.

From the archive, Steve Coll:

Clearly, Lashkar knows what it must do to protect the Pakistan government from being exposed in the violent operations that Lashkar runs in Kashmir and elsewhere.

And from last September, Dexter Filkins:

What’s going on? I asked the warlord. Why aren’t they coming for you?

“I cannot lie to you,” Namdar said, smiling at last. “The army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.”

Entertain whom? I asked.

“America,” he said.

Finally:

"You can't fight here! This is the war room!"

Pakistan in Peril

Dexter is back in the sea of poppies.

The Taliban are everywhere the soldiers are not, the saying goes in the southern part of the country.

And that is a lot of places.

The Obama administration has agreed to deploy 20,000 to 30,000 additional troops. But whether extra troops will have the desired impact is unclear.

Back in October, it was noted:

The average Afghan spends one-fifth of his income on bribes.

From 2005:

"Trying to get rid of drugs in Afghanistan is like trying to clear sand from a beach with a bucket," said an American counter-narcotics agent.

From 2006, a snowflake:

Building a new nation is never a straight, steady climb upward. Today can sometimes look worse than yesterday -- or even two months ago. What matters is the overall trajectory: Where do things stand today when compared to what they were five years ago?

From 2007, a UN report:

On aggregate, Afghanistan’s opium production has reached a frighteningly new level, twice the amount produced just two years ago.

From 2008, an NYT Sunday magazine feature:

This past spring, more US troops arrived in Afghanistan. They were effective, experienced warriors — many coming from Iraq — but they knew little about drugs. When they arrived in southern Afghanistan, they announced that they would not interfere with poppy harvesting in the area. “Not our job,” they said.

From late 2008:

Not all "victors" experience wars in the same way.

Consider this:

All Music Guide calls it "a kind of warm, nearly-poppy, guitar-filled trip into Middle Eastern chants, tight bass grooves, and drums that hover beneath the surface."

Finally, Rory Stewart:

Without music, time has a very different quality.

In Afghan South, Taliban Fill NATO’s Big Gaps

Thomas Powers, from last year:

At a moment of serious challenge, battered by two wars, ballooning debt, and a faltering economy, the United States appears to have lost its capacity to think clearly.

Saramago, from Blindness:

Were it not for the fact that we're blind this mix-up would never have happened, You're right, our problem is that we're blind.

From 43:

"You can't talk sense to them," Bush said, referring to terrorists.

"Nooooo!" the audience roared.

From 1961:

An Englishman said to me recently, "You Americans live on a much higher plane of expectancy than we do. You constantly work toward some impossible goal of happiness and perfection, and you unfortunately don't have our ability just to give up. Really, it's much easier to accept the fact that some things can't be solved." He is right; we never accept it, and we kill ourselves trying.

From 1941:

But for everyone, surely, ... this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today.

Who remains unyielding to overwhelming might?

Transitioning: Continued

Hendrik Hertzberg:

A gangly Illinois politician whom "the base" would today label a RINO once pointed out that you can fool some of the people all of the time. We now know how many "some" is: twenty-seven per cent. That's the proportion of Americans who, according to CNN, cling to the belief that George W. Bush has done a good job.

What role the Bush Administration's downgrading of terrorism as a foreign-policy priority played in the success of the 9/11 attacks cannot be known, but there is no doubting its responsibility for the launching and mismanagement of the unprovoked war in Iraq, with all its attendant suffering; for allowing the justified war in Afghanistan to slide to the edge of defeat; and for the vertiginous worldwide decline of America's influence, prestige, power, and moral standing.

There can be no debate that a sizable proportion of the commentariat, and apparently of the public at large, cling to the belief that the Afghan campaign, writ large, is both strategically wise and satisfyingly winnable.

This provokes certain thoughts, and questions. First, the questions:

What drives this rage for complacency, this desperate contentment?

Are some people lying, or are they simply afraid to be honest?

From 1957:

Both mouse and cat survived, and the incident is recorded here as a reminder that things seem to be changing.

From March 2004:

At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything.

The Democrats are going to be out for a long time if they can't be honest with themselves.

From November 2004:

Of course we had war plans.

From October 2008:

The solution for people who have spent a long time in Afghanistan was ... to work with the Taliban and somehow to uncouple the Afghan fighters from al-Qaeda. Seven years of killing later, it feels a bit too late to try that now. So, western policy seems glued to fighting a war that many people in the know are now saying the west is never going to win.

From October 2008:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

From January 2009:

We will not be able to eliminate the Taliban from the rural areas of Afghanistan’s south, so we will have to work with Afghans to contain the insurgency instead. All this is unpleasant for Western politicians who dream of solving the fundamental problems and getting out. They will soon be tempted to give up.

How long will we cling to this belief? How soon will we give in to the temptation to be honest with ourselves?

Finally, two from Freeman Dyson:

You must have principles that you're willing to die for.

The moral imperative at the end of every war is reconciliation. In order to make a lasting peace, we must learn to live with our enemies.

Transitioning