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Since he left office former Vice President Dick Cheney has been waging a lonesome jihad to defend the practices of the Bush administration’s during the ‘war on terror’, saying in an emblematic interview in February: “If it hadn’t been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again. Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”

Stephen M. Walt, fellow Foreign Policy blogger and professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and the co-author of the influential 2007 book The Israel Lobby has turned his sights on the Obama administration’s strategic justification for the ramped-up American efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Taliban Now Winning” declared Monday’s headline in the Wall Street Journal based on its interview with Gen Stanley McChrystal. But the headline was a classic case of a editor hyping the substance of a story, which the reporters of the story themselves had already applied a little touch of their own gilding to when they characterized General McChrystal’s position in their interview to be that the Taliban now had the “upper hand.”

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/03/jihadistan

By Peter Bergen A common refrain since the spring from some of the country’s leading policy makers and defense intellectuals is that Pakistan is going to hell in a hand basket. As a frequent visitor to Pakistan since 1983 I just don’t buy this pessimism but it’s a view held by an impressive array of […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud likely has been killed in a U.S. drone attack, a top Pakistani official said Friday. Villagers gather at the rubble of houses belonging to supporters of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Editor’s note: Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum,and at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He’s the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader.” Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst at the New America Foundation.

Editor’s note: Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum,and at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He’s the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader.” Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst at the New America Foundation.

T hroughout his campaign last year, President Barack Obama said repeatedly that the real central front of the war against terrorists was on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And now he is living up to his campaign promise to roll back the Taliban and al-Qaeda with significant resources. By the end of the year there will be some 70,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration is pushing for billions of dollars in additional aid to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.