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The incoming Obama administration plans to explore a more regional strategy to the war in Afghanistan -- including possible talks with Iran -- and looks favorably on the nascent dialogue between the Afghan government and "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban, according to Obama national security advisers.

President-elect Barack Obama also intends to renew the U.S. commitment to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a priority the president-elect believes President Bush has played down after years of failing to apprehend the al-Qaeda leader. Critical of Bush during the campaign for what he said was the president's extreme focus on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan, Obama also intends to move ahead with a planned deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops there.

The emerging broad strokes of Obama's approach are likely to be welcomed by a number of senior U.S. military officials who advocate a more aggressive and creative course for the deteriorating conflict. Taliban attacks and U.S. casualties this year are the highest since the war began in 2001.
 

Some military leaders remain wary of Obama's pledge to order a steady withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, to be completed within 16 months -- an order advisers say Obama is likely to give in his first weeks in office. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called a withdrawal timeline "dangerous." Others are distrustful of a new administration they see as unschooled in the counterinsurgency wars that have consumed the military for the past seven years.

But conversations with several Obama advisers and a number of senior military strategists both before and since last Tuesday's election reveal a shared sense that the Afghan effort under the Bush administration has been hampered by ideological and diplomatic constraints and an unrealistic commitment to the goal of building a modern democracy -- rather than a stable nation that rejects al-Qaeda and Islamist extremism and does not threaten U.S. interests. None of those who discussed the subject would speak on the record, citing sensitivities surrounding the presidential transition and the war itself.

As Obama begins to formulate his Afghan war policy, some senior military strategists have begun to question the U.S. commitment to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is expected to run for reelection next year but is widely considered weak and ineffective. Some European and NATO officials have suggested that an assembly of tribal elders should select the country's next leader, an idea the State Department has rejected.

Obama advisers have emphasized that a sharper focus on al-Qaeda does not mean pulling back on the Afghan ground war. Obama called early in the campaign for deploying two or three additional U.S. combat brigades to Afghanistan. Bush has already approved such an increase, although the timing of the deployments, likely to begin next spring, depends on the drawdown of forces from Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mullen, frustrated by the performance of NATO allies whose troops make up more than half the total foreign force in Afghanistan, have already planned for a more overt and forceful U.S. leadership role in the war, as well as more direct involvement by U.S. forces in fighting the Taliban in southern and western Afghanistan.

Some NATO military officials said enhanced U.S. leadership would be welcome, as long as it was not seen as a "takeover bid," said one senior European officer whose country has troops fighting as part of the NATO coalition in Afghanistan. While the U.S. military has long criticized some NATO members for lacking combat zeal and expertise in Afghanistan, many European officers resent what they see as U.S. arrogance.

The NATO officer suggested that Obama, whose election was greeted with wide approval in Europe, may have more success than Bush in persuading other alliance members to increase their fighting forces in Afghanistan. "I think you'll find the new president would then be able to persuade a number of European nations who have not liked this administration's way of doing business to come in behind them," he said.

At Mullen's direction, the map of the Afghanistan battle space is being redrawn to include the tribal regions of western Pakistan. U.S. military and intelligence leaders have delivered forceful messages to Pakistani officials on the need to step up attacks against Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in their territory.

Obama, advisers said, plans to intensify the U.S. military and intelligence focus on al-Qaeda and bin Laden. Intelligence officials say the search is already as intensive as ever, even as they emphasize that the decentralized al-Qaeda network would remain a threat without him. Bush administration officials have publicly played down the importance of a single individual in the broad sweep of their anti-terrorism offensive.

The federal government today announced an expanded effort to bail out American International Group, including a partial government takeover of the company, as the troubled insurance giant disclosed massive losses over the past three months.

The new plan expands an existing government bailout program from $123 billion to $150 billion. But more significantly, it restructures the plan to include much less debt and instead provides direct government investment in the company.

Under the new plan, the government will buy $40 billion of AIG preferred stock, a step that puts AIG on par with major U.S. banks, which the government partially nationalized last month. Another $52.5 billion will be used to take troubled assets off of the company's books.

The new plan is an acknowledgement that an original bid to help the company was in fact weighing it down by requiring quick repayment and a high interest rate on government loans.

Federal officials announced the new AIG bailout at 6 a.m. -- shortly before the company reported that it had lost $24.5 billion from July through October. AIG has now posted losses of $37.6 billion for the first nine months of the year.

The federal government today announced an expanded effort to bail out American International Group, including a partial government takeover of the company, as the troubled insurance giant disclosed massive losses over the past three months.

The new plan expands an existing government bailout program from $123 billion to $150 billion. But more significantly, it restructures the plan to include much less debt and instead provides direct government investment in the company.

Under the new plan, the government will buy $40 billion of AIG preferred stock, a step that puts AIG on par with major U.S. banks, which the government partially nationalized last month. Another $52.5 billion will be used to take troubled assets off of the company's books.

The new plan is an acknowledgement that an original bid to help the company was in fact weighing it down by requiring quick repayment and a high interest rate on government loans.

Federal officials announced the new AIG bailout at 6 a.m. -- shortly before the company reported that it had lost $24.5 billion from July through October. AIG has now posted losses of $37.6 billion for the first nine months of the year.

A new laptop designed by Nigerian artist Joseph Amédokpo

Hanging on a wall at Dell's (DELL) consumer design lab in Austin, Tex., are neat rows of what look like abstract paintings. There's a splashy watercolor in turquoise, black, and green, and a mosaic pattern of white and red dots and geometric shapes. Another is covered with hand-drawn sketches of olives in green, purple, and orange. These aren't works of art, though. They're dozens of prototypes for future laptops. Look closely and you see the Dell logo on each one.

The man behind this effort is Ed Boyd, one of Dell's most unusual hires in recent years. Boyd is an industrial designer who used to dream up new sunglasses and shoes for Nike (NKE). Now the 43-year-old is trying to make design an integral part of Dell, the personal computer maker long known for cranking out boring gray boxes. "I was skeptical it could be cool," says Boyd, who joined the company last year. "I took the job when I heard the design lab would function like a startup for consumer [products]."

LET THE BUYER DESIGN

Dell plans to roll out the first three laptops with these colorful designs on Nov. 11, in time for the holiday season. Customers will pay an extra $75 for the designs, on top of the basic $699 price tag for the company's budget-line portables. The designs are from Nigerian painter Joseph Amédokpo, South African graphic artist Siobhan Gunning, and Canadian designer Bruce Mau.

For Boyd, this is just a start, though. Next year, Dell will let buyers customize laptops in a dizzying number of ways, mixing scores of colors, patterns, and textures. The options will go far beyond the handful of choices available from most of its rivals. In essence, Boyd is taking the Nike approach of letting people design their own sneakers, and trying to apply it to the world of computers. "We're pushing the idea of [made-to-order computers] to the next level," says Boyd.

Dell could certainly use a change in fortune. The once-mighty PC maker has stumbled in recent years: Its stock is off by more than 60% since 2005. Even after founder Michael S. Dell returned as chief executive in 2007, the company continued to lose ground to Apple (AAPL) and the resurgent Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). "We had higher expectations for Dell's turnaround by now," says Clay Sumner, senior analyst at FBR Research (FBR). Dell's market capitalization is now $24 billion, compared with $93 billion for Apple and HP's $87 billion. The net cash on Apple's balance sheet is about the same as Dell's market cap.

Michael Dell contends that the company is making progress. He says Boyd's efforts have helped Dell get back on track, particularly with consumers. "We've got the most exciting new products ever from Dell coming in the second half of this year," Dell said during a speech in June. "That's fundamentally what brings new customers in."

RISKS AND REWARDS

Still, Dell's timing is awful. With the economy headed into recession and consumers cutting back, it will be difficult to charge any sort of premium for cool design. Analysts say that's especially true for companies such as Dell that don't have an established reputation for design. "Price will be more important for consumers because of the economic deterioration," says Mika Kitagawa, an analyst with the market research firm Gartner (IT).

Boyd is used to taking risks. Last year he hired an obscure graffiti artist named Mike Ming to create images for Dell products, a move that worried some of Dell's straitlaced staff.

With the U.S. election just days away, it has never been
more important to consider what the next President must do to keep America competitive. In this time of crisis, Washington has focused on the immediate and the short term. Lost are the more basic questions we really need to worry about: What is the fundamental competitive position of the U.S. in the global economy? And what must we do to remain strong when other nations are making rapid progress?

The stark truth is that the U.S. has no long-term economic strategy—no coherent set of policies to ensure competitiveness over the long haul. Strategy embodies clear priorities, based on understanding the strengths we need to preserve and the weaknesses that threaten our prosperity the most. Strategy addresses what to do, but also what not to do. In dealing with a crisis, experience teaches us that steps to address the immediate problem must support a long-term strategy. Yet it is far from clear that we are taking the steps most important to America's long-term economic prosperity.

America's political system, especially as it has evolved in recent times, almost guarantees an absence of strategic thinking at the federal level. Government leaders react to current events piecemeal, rather than developing a strategy that unfolds over years. Congress and the Executive Branch are organized around discrete policy areas, not around the overall goal of improving competitiveness. Neither candidate has put forward anything close to a strategy; rather, each has presented a set of disconnected policy proposals with political appeal. Both parties contribute to the problem by approaching the economy with long-held ideologies and policy positions, many of which no longer fit with today's reality.

Now is the moment when the U.S. needs to break this cycle. The American economy has performed remarkably well, but our continued competitiveness has become fragile. Over the last two decades the U.S. has accounted for an incredible one-third of world economic growth. As the financial crisis hit, the rest of the American economy remained quite competitive, with many companies performing strongly in international markets. U.S. productivity growth has continued to be faster than in most other advanced economies, and exports have been the growth driver in the overall economy.

THE AGE OF ANXIETY

Yet our success has come with deep insecurities for many Americans, even before the crisis. The emergence of China and India as global players has sparked deep fears for U.S. jobs and wages, despite unemployment rates that have been low by historical standards. While the U.S. economy has been a stronger net job creator than most advanced countries, the high level of job churn (restructuring destroys about 30 million jobs per year) makes many Americans fear for their future, their pensions, and their health care. While the standard of living has risen over the last several decades for all income groups, especially when properly adjusted for family size, and while the U.S. remains the land where lower-income citizens have the best chance of moving up the economic ladder, inequality has risen. This has caused many Americans to question globalization.

To reconcile these conflicting perspectives, it's necessary to assess where America really stands. The U.S. has prospered because it has enjoyed a set of unique competitive strengths. First, the U.S. has an unparalleled environment for entrepreneurship and starting new companies.

Second, U.S. entrepreneurship has been fed by a science, technology, and innovation machine that remains by far the best in the world. While other countries increase their spending on research and development, the U.S. remains uniquely good at coaxing innovation out of its research and translating those innovations into commercial products. In 2007, American inventors registered about 80,000 patents in the U.S. patent system, where virtually all important technologies developed in any nation are patented. That's more than the rest of the world combined.

Yeah, that's true. Obama got a lot of fundraising money. maybe one of the record in US presidential campaign history.

Though McCain also have kept a lot of the supporter, Obama have got more money than McCain, actually.

I don't think all transactions should be scrutinized, however, some anonymous fundraising money should be investigated.

Just my short opinion.

Followings are from Washington Post.






Barack Obama's unconventional fundraising success, many experts say, could transform the campaign finance system, though it also raises new questions. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)


Sen. Barack Obama's record-breaking $150 million fundraising performance in September has for the first time prompted questions about whether presidential candidates should be permitted to collect huge sums of money through faceless credit card transactions over the Internet.

Lawyers for both the Republican and Democratic parties have asked the Federal Election Commission to examine the issue, pointing to dozens of examples of what they say are lax screening procedures by the presidential campaigns that permitted donors using false names or stolen credit cards to make contributions.

"There is so much money coming in and yet very little ability to say with certainty that you know who is giving it," said Sean Cairncross, the Republican National Committee's chief counsel.

While the potentially fraudulent or excessive contributions represent about 1 percent of Obama's staggering haul, the security challenge is one of several major campaign-finance-related questions raised by the Democrat's fundraising juggernaut.

Concerns about anonymous donations seeping into the campaign began to surface last month, mainly on conservative blogs. Some bloggers described their own attempts to display the flaws in Obama's fundraising program, donating under such obviously phony names as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and reported that the credit card transactions were permitted.

Obama officials said it should be obvious that it is as much in their campaign's interest as it is in the public's interest for fake contributions to be turned back, and said they have taken pains to establish a barrier to prevent them. Over the course of the campaign, they said, a number of additional safeguards have been added to bulk up the security of their system.

In a paper outlining those safeguards, provided to The Washington Post, the campaign said it runs twice-daily sweeps of new donations, looking for irregularities. Flagged contributions are manually reviewed by a team of lawyers, then cleared or refunded. Reports of misused credit cards lead to immediate refunds.

In September, according to the campaign, $1.8 million in online contributions was flagged, and $353,000 was refunded. Of the contributions flagged because a foreign address or bank account was involved, 94.1 percent were found to be proper. One-tenth of one percent were marked for refund, and 5.77 percent are still being vetted.

But clearly invented names have been used often enough to provoke an outcry from Republican critics. Donors to the Obama campaign using false names such as Doodad Pro and Good Will gave $17,375 through 1,000 separate donations, with no sign that they immediately tripped alarms at the campaign. Of more concern, Cairncross said, are reports that the campaign permitted money from 123 foreign nationals to enter its accounts.

Obama officials said they have identified similar irregularities in the finance records of their Republican rival, Sen. John McCain. "Every campaign faces these challenges -- John McCain's campaign has refunded more than $1.2 million in contributions from anonymous, excessive and fraudulent contributors -- and we have reviewed and strengthened our procedures to ensure that the contributions the campaign accepts are appropriate," said Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesman.

McCain's contributor database shows at least 201 donations from individuals listing themselves as "anonymous" or "anonymous anonymous," according to Obama's campaign. In one particularly embarrassing episode, the McCain campaign mistakenly sent a fundraising solicitation to the Russian ambassador to the United Nations.

Rather than relying primarily on a network of wealthy and well-connected bundlers -- as candidates have since President Bush pioneered that technique in 2000 -- Obama also tapped a list of 3 million ordinary donors, many of whom who gave in increments of $25 and $50.