Afghanistan: For Your Reading Pleasure

From the Dreyfuss Report, The Nation:

"Having spent a while reading about Afghanistan, I've collected some resources for anyone who'd like to learn a little more about that godforsaken country and about what various strategists think ought to be done. Pretty much everything I've listed below is useful to read, even if you don't agree with all of the conclusions that analysts come up with."

"A good place to start is The Forgotten Front, published more than a year ago by the Center for American Progress. Written by Caroline P. Wadhams, an extremely bright young analyst, and Lawrence Korb, a veteran defense expert, it's a primer about the war. Many progressives won't like their conclusion that the United States needs to send more troops. (At the time, when the US had 25,000 troops in country, CAP recommended adding 20,000 more. Currently, there are 36,000 US forces, and President Obama has ordered the deployment of 17,000 more.) And CAP puts too much emphasis on NATO, saying, "A failure in Afghanistan would throw NATO's relevance into doubt" -- as if the war were about NATO, not Afghanistan. But "The Forgotten Front," even though it is somewhat overtaken by events, is a very useful guide to the issues in the war, complete with maps, charts and graphs."

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