London, England

  Assalamu aleikum and welcome to the Surge, part 2. Last week's long awaited announcement by President Barack Obama to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan - and the reasons he gave for it - mirrors the "surge" that former President George Bush implemented in Iraq during his last term in office. It comes at a time when Obama's poll numbers are at an all time low (even though a majority approve of Obama's decision to temporarily increase troop numbers). General Stanley McChrystal, upon whose judgment Obama's decision rested, maintains that the Taliban's momentum will be reversed within a year before troops can be withdrawn as (re)promised in July 2011 (four months before the next election). Obama's decision is compounded by a number of factors - the resurgent Taliban, who has staged scores of bombings in Afghanistan in recent months and the failed election process that kept President Hamid Karzai in power. Karzai himself says that Afghanistan will need 20 years before his country can maintain its security independently, something the American electorate would likely find intolerable. Both British and American strategists expect to buy time to build up domestic security forces. "This is clearly the approach now," says Dr. Tim Bird, a British defense expert. "We go in for four or five years, hit the Taliban hard, dampen them down, buy time to train up a fairly huge Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, hand over district by district." So simple, in fact, that Soviet and British forces tried much the same thing in the past 120 years... to lead where we are now.

Meanwhile, next door in Pakistan, the impact of the conflict is continuing against the Pakistani government, military, and society in general (we have a personal story up on the most recent blast in Islamabad). Even in the face of widespread killing by the Taliban, there is still plenty of blame laid at America's feet by victims and bystanders. Despite a huge offensive by Pakistan's military in the South Waziristan region, Taliban forces managed to exploit a peace agreement with leaders in North Waziristan that allowed forces to retreat and regroup before later carrying out targeted IUD and suicide bomb attacks in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan. An interview with one suicide bomber trained in Waziristan shows how difficult things will continue to get in Pakistan ("Those who are not taking part in jihad are not innocent. Our leader has told us that you will not be responsible for the killing of those who are killed other than your target... No one in Pakistan is innocent. Whoever is outside Waziristan is not innocent"). Beyond this, there are the complexities of the Al Qaeda-Taliban alliance and what kind of goals the Taliban have now - nationalist or pan-Islamic? By equating the two organisations, there is difficulty doing what many still say should be done - talk to the Taliban - despite the rampant abuses that occurred when Pakistan allowed the Taliban to govern there earlier this year. With the Obama administration now considering the Taliban no longer a threat to the United States, how will that affect AfPak strategy once the 30,000 troops start leaving within 2 years? And will that change or merely delay the Taliban's own plans, drawn up with American in mind? While creative minds ponder those issues, Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif says that India is to blame for the recent bombings. Well, that line worked before...

Finally, there's the bizarre but familiar story of an alleged "dry run" on an an AirTran flight last month from Atlanta to Houston. Publicized by e-mail, it alleges that a group of men in "Muslim attire" began acting strangely on the plane before takeoff, insulting crew members, standing in a threatening manner, and watching pornos (don't ask), prompting two passengers to lead the men back to their seats before they were removed from the airplane. The e-mail was written by one of the passengers Tedd Petruna, who passed it around before it caught the attention of conservative blogs, who then carried the torch further. But once the story became well-known, AirTran and other journalists stepped in to find out the real story. One witness, who sat behind one of the group members said that the issue was overblown and had nothing to do with terrorism. "He was not talking on a cell phone, it was a camera," said Nancy Deveikis of Marietta, GA. "He was looking at pictures. Just one flight attendant snowed everyone into believing she had an irate passenger." Another passenger concurred with Deveikis, citing a language barrier that exacerbated the situation. AirTran, in an official statement, confirmed the witnesses version of events and added that "a number of the allegations included in the article posted by Mr. Petruna conflict with the statements obtained by the flight crew." Later, they expanded their statement to rebut Petruna's e-mail point by point, saying that they had "verified, according to flight manifests (legally binding documents) that... Petruna was never actually on-board the flight." Confronted with this information by a Houston television station, Petruna then admitted that his description of the men was wrong, he didn't see anyone watching pornographic movies, and that he took artistic license with a few points (though he maintains that he was on the flight). As with the "flying imams" case, where Muslim men were ejected from a flight after allegedly acting suspiciously, and the case of eleven Syrian musicians, who spooked writer Annie Jacobsen into writing a similar letter to Petruna's in 2004, there is a parallel universe where terrorists draw attention to themselves in practice runs for planned attacks. In this one, we get Snopes.

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