"Obama's War"

Kelso's Corner points to this graphic (pdf) from the Washington Post detailing what it calls "Obama's War": the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan to which Obama has committed to add troops, even as he moves to remove them from Iraq. Here's an inset:



The graphic, by Gene Thorp and Patterson Clark, has lots of graphs and charts which describe the all-around quagmirriffic situation there. It's striking how much worse the situation has gotten in Afghanistan over the years. Why, it's almost as if going to war in Iraq distracted the US from the fight against the actual people who were responsible for the September 11th attacks.

But it's far from obvious that throwing more troops at Afghanistan will be enough to resolve the problems there. It seems likely to me - and bear in mind that I'm a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also the editor of Foreign Policy - that in the long run, the war in Afghanistan is as unwinnable as the one in Iraq. The US and NATO have a moral responsibility to limit the suffering and ensure the maximum freedom of the people there, as well as a profound security interest in seeing that Al Qaeda is kept in check. But delivering actual long-term security and stability in the region, with democratic, pro-western governments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, may be a bridge too far. What, then, should the goals be? I'm not really sure, but hopefully Obama et al. are acting on some pretty clear and concrete conception of what they want the outcome to be. Otherwise Afghanistan could degenerate into Iraq II. And that would be awful for about thirty billion different reasons.

Thank you for joining me for another edition of "pontificating on subjects I know next to nothing about."



By the way, there's been very little military action in the area around Parachinar, Pakistan. Don't they know that that's where bin Laden is hiding?

Biogeographers Find Osama bin Laden

He's right here - in Parachinar, Pakistan:



Now, admittedly, they only found him in theory - island biogeographic and distance-decay theories, in fact. John Tierney discusses it all here. The finding is described in a paper (pdf) by some UCLA geography professors. Tierney quotes the paper's explanation of the relevance of geographical theory:

Distance-decay theory states that as one goes further away from a precise location, there is an exponential decline in the turnover of species and a lower probability of finding the same composition of species. The theory of island biogeography states that large and close islands will have higher immigration rates and support more species with lower extinction rates than small isolated islands.

These theories can be applied over varying spatial scales to posit bin Laden’s current location based on his last reputed geographic location. Distance-decay theory would predict that he is closest to the point where he was last reported and, by extension, within a region that has a similar physical environment and cultural composition (that is, similar religious and political beliefs).

Basically, it's more likely for a species (or an individual) to be found close to where they were previously found, and more likely to be found in a more closely connected and regionally integrated location.

A doubt comes to mind - a thought that this biogeographic method might not be the most translatable to the situation of an internationally-wanted terrorist and political icon. After all, bird species on islands generally aren't trying to hide from NATO military forces. But the researchers argue that bin Laden needs decent access to resources, including electricity for his dialysis machine, so a town is a more likely hiding place. (It's true that a house or a barn is as good as a cave for hiding from satellites and drone aircraft.) And they expect that it would be a larger town "rather than a smaller and more isolated town where the extinction rate would be higher." They use the distance-decay model to narrow it down further:

When we applied a distance-decay model to his last known location from 2001, the FATA – or Federally Administered Tribal Area – of Kurram had the highest probability of hosting bin Laden (98%) (Figure 3). There were 26 city islands within a 20-km radius of his last known location in northwestern Kurram. Parachinar figured as the largest and the fourth-least isolated city (Figure 4). Nightlight imagery also shows that Parachinar is the closest city to his last known location and by far the brightest city by nightlight intensity in Kurram

You can see Parachinar here - it's that little dab of light just south of the red dot marking the last place bin Laden was known to have been.

The geographers even go on to suggest specific buildings based on bin Laden's "life characteristics" - he's tall (needs high ceilings), needs a dialysis machine (electricity), prefers high walls (bit of an agoraphobe), needs several rooms (bodyguards), and likes shady trees (satellites, you know). The most likely candidate turns out to be:


See, CIA? That wasn't so hard.