U.S. Envoy urges caution on forces for Afghanistan

The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday.

The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.

General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, the officials said. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces.

This low-end option was one of four alternatives under consideration by Mr. Obama and his war council at a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon. The other three options call for troop levels of around 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000, the three officials said.

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The Yuan underrated, China overrated

Stimulus packages have made sure that natural selection has not been able to cut away businesses that would normally be doomed to fail. But, as practically everyone now knows, if natural economical selection would have had free reign, the number of companies going bankrupt would have been enormous, leading to a disastrous situation.

We could envision a dramatic spike in unemployment, permanent damage to production capacity and an inability of people to pay for their houses and financial burdens for starters.

In the wake of stimulus injections, as much as we expected Western countries to go through a revival before the normally trailing Asians, the contrary seems to be the case. Will China take the lead in global politics? Will their innovative processes, combined with their fast-growing economy (the latest figures point to an 8.9 percent increase in the third quarter of this year) shove them forward and legitimize their status on the world stage?

Most of the answers will still point to no. Even the firm grip China holds by having all its reserves in dollars is less threatening than it might seem at first sight. Sure, in theory they could wreck the American economy: After years of lending to the American state, in order to keep up the level of American spending, their share in state obligations is huge.

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Oh come all ye faithful

I don’t write about so-called matters of faith very much, preferring to leave that to people to whom those things matter more, but the recent announcement by the Vatican to disenchanted Anglicans and Episcopalians that the Roman Catholic Church would not only invite them into their flock but would even accommodate their entry by adopting some of their liturgical forms gave this religious cynic pause.

The first thought I had upon reading of the Vatican’s decision was that it made sense. The Roman Church is catering to the homophobes in the Anglican formation.

Ever since the appointment of an openly gay bishop to the head of the American wing, many Episcopalians have struggled with their faith and their allegiance to their church. In the meantime, the Roman Catholic Church has actively funded campaigns against gay equality and has stepped up their campaign against homosexuality.

The second thought I had upon reading about the Vatican’s decision was that this was the religious version of a corporate takeover. Look, says the Vatican to those disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians, your spiritual stock may be down because of the decisions of your church elders to accept all of god’s children into its flock as equals, but our church would never do such a thing.

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