Monday evening roundup

Fascinating article on tribal loyalties, corruption, and regionalism in Afghanistan. And another on less complex challenges to stability:

Frustrated, Governor Massoud said his “government is weak and cannot provide agricultural officials, school officials, prosecutors and judges.”

He said he was promised 120 police officers, but only 50 showed up. He said many were untrustworthy and poorly trained men who stole from the people, a description many of the Americans agree with. No more than 10 percent appear to have attended a police academy, they say. “Many are just men from the streets,” the governor said.

The Afghan National Army contingent appears sharper — even if only one-sixth the size that Governor Massoud said he was promised — but the soldiers have resisted some missions because they say they were sent not to fight, but to recuperate.

“We came here to rest, then we are going somewhere else,” said Lt. Javed Jabar Khail, commander of the 31-man unit. The Marines say they hope the next batch of Afghan soldiers will not be expecting a holiday.

As to whether it's a war of choice, Kagan responds to Haass:

But there is a deeper reason, as well, for Obama to claim necessity in Afghanistan. It is part of what increasingly seems to be a striving for moral purity in international affairs by this administration. Obama and his top advisers apologize for America's past sins, implicitly suggesting they will commit no new ones. And that goes for fighting wars. No one can blame you for fighting a war if it is a war of necessity, or so they may believe. All the inevitable ancillary casualties of war -- from civilian deaths to the occasional misbehavior of the troops to the errors of commanders -- are more easily forgiven if one has no choice. The claim of necessity wipes away the moral ambiguities inherent in the exercise of power. And it prevents scrutiny of one's own motives, which in nations, as in individuals, are rarely pure.

and

As Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out long ago, Americans find it hard to acknowledge this moral ambiguity of power. They are reluctant to face the fact that it is only through the morally ambiguous exercise of their power that any good can be accomplished. Obama is right to be prosecuting the war in Afghanistan, and he should do so even more vigorously. But he will not avoid the moral and practical burdens of fighting this war by claiming he has no choice. An action can be right or just without being necessary. Like great presidents in the past, Barack Obama will have to explain why his choice, while difficult and fraught with complexity, is right and better than the alternatives.

I may have issues, but if I had $4-8k lying around, I can assure you I would not spend it on ankle lipo (or any kind of lipo, for that matter).

You guys know I love Grist, especially their food writing... at least when it's political food writing. Much that they've posted about preparing food has actually just annoyed me. Take this zucchini fritter recipe. Now, I've actually posted my zucchini fritter recipe on this blog, because enough people have asked me for it. People looovvvvveeee my zucchini fritters, so I come to this fight from a position of strength. I am usually tolerant of alternate recipes, but this one just horrifies me!

Squeeze out the water? There's zucchini flavor in that water. Of course then you feel like you have to compensate with scallions. Now, I'm a big fan of everything in the onion family, but (Russian-style) zucchini pancakes let the zucchini speak for itself and don't overwhelm it with competing flavors. To keep your fritters from watering, watering, don't salt them until they're frying.