Its my party and I will cry if I want to

http://mobile.washingtonpost.com/detail.jsp?key=188272&rc=to&p=1&all=1

SECdef Gates has been a welcome breath of fresh air on Iraq. Old school but at least he understands the concept of limited resources and that a need to make choices and rank priorities cannot be wished away with handwaving.

That said, his recent assault on NATO members has been an unfortunate step away from that. He and others concede the systemic challenges in Afghanistan are strengthening governance and economic reconstruction - not blowing things up. Yet despite the repeated pleadungs from the afghan govt to stop killing its citizens, he apparently thinks the solution to the aformentioned problems is more soldiers with looser rules of engagement.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but it seems to me that an international economic stimulus plan with both micro and macro targets would go a lot farther.

Gates also needs to realize that when you are already pissing off your allies with Iraq, publicly berating them for not doing the job you started in afghan isn't going to help.
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