Disengaging from Afghanistan is the option President Barack Obama is the least likely to adopt as he closes in on a new strategy in the eight-year war he calls one of \u201cnecessity.\u201d

But on Thursday, at one of the countless policy conferences in Washington to discuss the president\u2019s choices, some experts suggested withdrawal was the best route \u2014 and they said it would not necessarily impact efforts to fight al Qaeda.

Harvard University\u2019s Stephen Walt called the argument for disengagement \u201cfairly compelling,\u201d while conceding it was not the most popular.

His tally of the costs: $225 billion since the Sept. 11 attacks, with more than 850 U.S. soldiers killed and thousands wounded.

\u201cThe costs are going to be large at a time when the American economy is not exactly robust,\u201d

he told the Capitol Hill conference organized by the Rand Corporation.

Even if\ue000 the United States \u201cwon,\u201d al Qaeda would still have a safe haven in neighboring Pakistan as well as in Yemen, Somalia or other nations where they like to hang out, Walt said. If U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, \u201cit is not obvious that it\ue000 will\ue000significantly enhance al Qaeda\u2019s ability to go after us.\u201d

The CATO Institute\u2019s Christopher Preble was also in the \u201cbig skeptic\u201d column when it comes to sending in more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. He said the big question Obama needs to ask is whether the mission in Afghanistan is essential for U.S. national security \u2014 which most experts argue it is.

\u201cHas it become a case of we must win the war because it is the war that we are in?\u201d asked Preble. \u201cWe must narrow our focus. We don\u2019t need a large-scale, long- term presence to degrade al Qaeda\u2019s capacity in

Countering Preble and Walt, was Afghanistan expert Jim Dobbins who argued that the consequences of pulling out would be an escalation of the civil war, a\ue000region further destabilized\ue000and even more misery for the Afghan population. \u201cYou will see hardship that makes what you see

now look like prosperity,\u201d said Dobbins, with the Rand Corporation.

Also pounding on the withdrawal drum was the anti- war group Code Pink, whose representative pressed Senator Carl Levin to follow public opinion and push for a pull-out.

go to Afghanistan to double that country\u2019s police and army forces, said Obama was doing his best to advance the country\u2019s national security interests.

\u201cWhen President Bush decided to go to Iraq, public opinion supported him. I don\u2019t\u2019 think you did. I didn\u2019t either,\u201d answered Levin to Code Pink\u2019s Medea Benjamin.

On Friday, the commander-in- chief meets his military chiefs to hear recommendations on troop strength. Officials say his deliberations are coming to a close in what will be known in decades to come as\ue000Obama\u2019s war.

Photo credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani (U.S. soldiers patrol in Kandahar), Reuters/Mohsin Raza (anti-U.S. protester in Pakistan in May)

As the Justice Department argued that former U.S. government scientistS t e w a r t

Nozette should remain in jail while he awaits trial on espionage charges, juicy new

details emerged about the sting operation leading to his arrest for passing top secret information to an individual he thought was an Israeli intelligence officer but really was the FBI.

Nozette was arrested at the famous Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Oct. 19 but before FBI agents put the cuffs on him, the Justice Department said that he went to the bathroom in the suite and stashed $10,000 in the toilet\u2019s upper tank. (The money was later recovered so don\u2019t bother booking the room.) The money was meant as a down payment on some $2 million Nozette demanded for handing over details about a classified

program that the United States had spent $1 billion to develop and deploy, according to the Justice Department.

Nozette allegedly also sought from the undercover FBI employee an Israeli passport with an alias and he opened a safe deposit box in California in which he stashed three computer drives, eight videotapes, 55 gold South African Krugerrand coins worth roughly $50,000, and $30,000 in savings bonds, the government said. (The Justice

Department has said that Israel had no involvement in the attempted espionage.)

Earlier this year a jury convicted a former congressman, William Jefferson of Louisiana, in a corruption case that included $90,000 hidden in a freezer. To bolster the government\u2019s case to keep Nozette under lock and key until his trial, the Justice Department said its investigation \u201chas revealed that Nozette is a person of means,\u201d noting that he owns several residential

properties across the country including a $2 million house in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and a $550,000 vacation home in Merritt Island, Florida.

\u201cNo treaty allows the United States to compel the extradition of an individual charged with espionage,\u201d the government\u2019s filing said.

Nozette has held a number of senior government positions and even helped with the development of a radar experiment that helped in the discovery of water ice on the south pole of the moon, the government said. He also worked at the Energy Department\u2019s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and held special security clearance.

In January 2009, Nozette pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion charges, paying $265,000 in restitution.

Options Update: Human
Genome November
volatility at 248 into data

Benlysta, a lupus treatment, is expected to have phase 3 data released on November 2. HGSI November option implied volatility is at 249, December is at 170, January is at 143 and April is at 112, according to Track Data, suggesting large movement.

Options Update: Human Genome November volatility at 248 into data originally appeared

onBloggingStocks on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

a little Android 2.0 action. Hells yeah. The official Android update was ported to the G1 by some ambitious coders. Now, calm down until you see the

video after the jump as the early build doesn\u2019t exactly run all that well on the one year old phone. But you have to start somewhere. [viah d b l o g . i t]

Thursday Night Music:
Ry Cooder, 'Waitin'
For Some Girl'

So big that Republican Congressman David Camp was going to take it with him to read on a flight to his Michigan home but it wouldn\u2019t fit in the overhead compartment, an aide quipped.

Thursday by Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The 1,990-page document comes in at more pages than an English translation of Leo Tolstoy\u2019s \u201cWar and Peace\u201d which is just shy of 1,500 pages.

The health legislation may or may not be more interesting than the epic story about 19th century Russian society, but it is the center of attention on Capitol Hill at the moment.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander says he will read it and recommends that everyone else does too. The legislative text of the \u201cAffordable Health Care for America Act\u201d is available on the House Rules Committee

\u201cI have an important announcement to make on a subject which I believe will be of interest to the American people: the era of the 1,000-page bill is over,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cWe have 2,000-page bill.\u201d

Democrats argue that the weighty legislation will help millions of uninsured Americans, reduce costs and end insurance industry practices that result in loss of coverage and discriminate against people because of medical history, sex and profession.

changing the healthcare system is needed and that the cost of the proposed Democratic bill is high. \u201cA 2,000-page healthcare bill that costs a trillion dollars means that every page costs the American people a half-billion dollars,\u201d says Don Steward, spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveils House Democrats\u2019 healthcare bill)

Since the September 11 attacks, CIA officials have made it clear that to get the intelligence needed to stop terrorism attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies sometimes have to deal with \u201cbad guys.\u201d

been regularly paying Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for at least eight years for services that included helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force. The newspaper report says that Ahmed Wali Karzai is a suspected player in the illegal opium trade, which he denies.

Senator John McCain told CBS \u201cEarly Show\u201d yesterday: \u201cI\u2019d heard that rumor before. I think it\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s wrong of the CIA to do it and I\u2019m sure our military commanders there would disagree with it.\u201d

One former intelligence official, who was not commenting specifically on the Karzai brother situation, said in general it would be worrisome if the debate restarts over whether the CIA should or should not do business with \u201ctainted individuals\u201d when trying to prevent harm to U.S. interests.

\u201cI\u2019ve seen that movie too many times before,\u201d the former official said behind a cloak of\ue000 anonymity.

People cannot criticize the CIA on the one hand if it fails to get critical information in societies marked by corruption and, on the other, \u201cexpress shock and dismay that it might deal with less-than- saintly individuals,\u201d the official said.

What do you think? Is it OK for the CIA to deal with unsavory characters if it means U.S. interests are protected? Or is this a slippery slope?

Question: Are standard DS & DSi games going to look pixelated and stretched on the

Check out the Japanese TV debut
after the jump.
[viaKotaku]