"... Is it hopeless?..."

LR/ W&P/here

George Packer profile of US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke in the current New Yorker, (only available in print and must read.) More devastating for being so well observed: a task that may be beyond the man, brilliant, charismatic, and the army, and a counterinsurgency fight that seemingly can't be "Afghanized" or turned over to the Afghans for whatever amount of money because of minimal Afghan government interest or regard for the population and vice versa. And with all the billions the US has and will pour into Pakistan, it remaining still a country only ostensibly cooperating with the U.S., while its very military and intelligence organs shelter an Afghan Taliban supporting and killing Americans and Afghans next door. Packer captures the odd scene from Afghanistan of ruins of USAID buildings dating from the last century, previous iterations of American efforts gone to dust. Is it hopeless? Then again, Iraq's Maliki government was looking equally corrupt, penetrated, inept, and in cases malign as Karzai's a few years ago, and yet there has seemingly become enough of a semi functional government and security apparatus however flawed to turn things over to. As Jim Dobbins tells Packer, the U.S. seems to have a counterterrorism goal - the oft-Obama administration quoted one of "defeat, dismantle and deter" Al Qaeda in Afghanistan -- with a counterinsurgency strategy that McChrystal is trying to get the troops to carry out.