The New York Times has one of the most stunning headlines of the day: Losses at Afghan Bank Could Be $900 Million. The story tells a story of Afghanistan’s own “Too Big to Fail” problem that offers opaque descriptions of precisely what caused the problem, but waits until the 17th and 18th paragraph to explain the real problem with the bank. The fact that our government is discovering, but not revealing, the degree to which we have been backing “a vertically integrated criminal enterprise” is the real story.

Joe Lieberman has introduced what he claims to be a law targeted at WikiLeaks. Problem is, not only would it not endanger WikiLeaks (as far as we know), but it would put both good and bad journalists in jail.

At some point, the US needs to take a step back and consider the way all types of extra-legal multinational organizations–terrorist organizations, criminal syndicates/drug cartels, even some multinational companies–serve to destabilize nation-states and communities and thereby to exacerbate our vulnerability to all of them.

But right now, DOD seems to be doubling down on the more western-friendly version of extra-legal entity as a key to trying to defeat another extra-legal entity.

Boy, Dexter Filkins sure has had an interesting week cataloging the sniping within American strategy, huh? Mind you, I’m not complaining about Filkins’ reporting (though his descriptions of anonymous sources doesn’t seem to comply with the NYT’s policy on identifying the motives for these anonymous leaks–it’s sure be useful to readers if he’d place his sources a little better, because no one on the inside is really fooled by these anonymous citations).

But he does seem to be the focus of a lot of competing leaks of late.

In a Reuters article on Sunday, we see yet another call from Hamid Karzai’s government in Afghanistan for the disbanding of US private security firms. It is undisputed that these firms represent a huge destabilizing presence, as seen by the small riot that ensued in Kabul on July 30 when a vehicle driven by DynCorp personnel was responsible for the deaths of four Afghans in a traffic accident. But in calling for the disbanding of US security contractors, is Karzai promoting peace or simply consolidating businesses controlled by his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai?

At the same time Gen Petraeus meets with Wali Karzai, Afghan prosecutor accuses US Special Forces of running an “outlaw militia” backed by Karzai and issues arrest warrant for a US Special Ops commander

Time for some serious Congressional hearings. The New York Times reports that Hamid Karzai’s brother, who has long been suspected of running a drug ring in southern Afghanistan — I mean, I asked Said Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to the U.S., about Ahmed Wali Karzai’s ties to opium trade in 2007 for TPM — is [...]