The military is telling President Obama it doesn't have enough troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The possibility that more troops will be needed in Afghanistan presents the Obama administration with another problem in dealing with a nearly eight-year war that has lost popularity at home, compounded by new questions over the credibility of the Afghan government, which has just held an as-yet inconclusive presidential election beset by complaints of fraud.

Can't we just finish the reconstruction work we promised them from our 2001 invasion and go home?

Related AP article: Obama facing tough choices in Afghanistan.

The U.S. is changing policy in the war against Afghan drug traffickers. A new report to be released this week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the U.S. will now keep a list of wanted Afghan drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban and hunt them down with orders to capture or kill them.

Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional study to be released this week.

...United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law. They also said the move is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.

No trial? Just shoot to kill? Wow. [More..]

The New York Times reports the U.S. has seized 101 tons of opium and narcotics in Afghanistan. 60 insurgents were killed.

The drugs were taken in a central market area in the town. A battle ensued in which, according to the American military, 60 insurgents were killed. An American military spokesman said the allies met a surprising level of resistance, fighting the militants for four days in gun battles and by aerial strikes.

Almost as an afterthought, the article adds:

The military said that commandos also found bomb-making materials, including 30 tons of ammonium nitrate, pressure plate triggers, military grade explosives and ammunition vests.

The Washington Post reports the current cost of the war in Afghanistan is $2 billion a month.

Under the plan Obama will announce today, the cost will increase 60% this year. More details:

Along with the 17,000 additional combat troops authorized last month, he said, Obama will send 4,000 more this fall to serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double in size over the next two years.

My latest post on Obama's intent to ratchet up the drug war in Afghanistan is here.

I hope this is change the American people will make clear they don't believe in.

First Mexico, now Afghanistan. The Wall St. Journal has as breaking news at the top of its site right now:

The Obama administration will unveil a new Afghanistan strategy Friday that calls for devoting significant new resources to counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan and economic development in Pakistan.

Today, Obama's choice of Ambassador to Afghanistan, Lt Gen Karl Eikenberry, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his confirmation hearing: [More...]

While I personally support President Obama's Afghanistan policy, I accept that reasonable minds can disagree on this complex and difficult issue. I thus endorse Meteor Blades' view that we must avoid:

a kind of rebranding . . . to separate "reasonable progressives" from "the crazies."

This was the type of New McCarthyism that Andrew Sullivan popularized earlier this decade. We must reject such an offensive and harmful approach out of hand.

Speaking for me only

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), in most ways the exception that proves my rule about "pols are pols," wrote an October 24, 2008 Op-Ed in the CSM questioning the wisdom of sending more troops to Afghanistan. Feingold wrote:

Washington policymakers and others are increasingly recognizing that we need to return our attention to Afghanistan and the threat of Al Qaeda. While the administration has pursued a misguided war in Iraq, the Taliban has regrouped in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has established a stronghold across the border in Pakistan, and Al Qaeda affiliates have gained strength around the world. But few people seem willing to ask whether the main solution that's being talked about– sending more troops to Afghanistan – will actually work.

Feingold wrongly presumed that "sending more troops" is "the main solution" when in fact it is only a part of the initiatives needed to provide a solution. More discussion on the flip

Apparently just the first tranche towards 25-30,000. NBC's Miklaczevski (sp) says two Marine battalions and one Army unit (did not hear the designation).

CNN reports 12,000 troops to be deployed.

I promised a discussion on this policy and I will get to it tomorrow.

Bump and Update: The WSJ confirms: The U.S. will fight the war on drugs in Afghanistan and enlist Iran in our effort.

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Coincidence? Vice-President Joe Biden, architect of innumerable oppressive U.S. crime bills, visits Afghanistan and the Nato Commander announces drug raids in Afghanistan are imminent.

NATO has been wanting to do this since last fall but didn't have the manpower. That problem seems solved. [More...]