Shorter Question Everything

Pakistan
The White House has authorized an expansion of the CIA’s program to attack suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with missiles shot from pilotless planes, a U.S. official confirms.

Afghanistan
Obama Advisers Backpedal on Afghanistan: “There Is No Timetable;” “We’re Not Talking About an Exit Strategy”.
But as administration officials touted the President’s Afghanistan strategy this morning on the Sunday political talk shows, they underscored that the U.S. troops may not be coming home in 2011:

Gen. David Petraeus: “There’s no timeline, no ramp, nothing like that.” [Fox News Sunday]

National Security Adviser James Jones: “It is not a cliff. It is a glide slope. And so certainly, the President has also said we are not leaving Afghanistan.” [CNN State of the Union]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “Well, first of all, I don’t consider this an exit strategy. And I try to avoid using that term. I think this is a transition.” [ABC This Week]

I’m left wondering who’s really making the calls here.

Uruguay
Uruguay’s left wing political coalition, the Broad Front party (Frente Amplio), retained control of the presidency in the November elections. This wasn’t just any election. The winner, flower farmer Jose “Pepe” Mujica, was the victim of imprisonment and torture during Operation Condor in the 1970’s as a result of his efforts as a Tupamaro rebel. During that period of military dictatorship, the new president spent fourteen years in prison, including two years confined at the bottom of a well.

US: ACORN
An internal investigation of the community-organizing group ACORN concluded there was no criminal conduct by employees caught on videos offering advice on how to hide assets and falsify lending documents. “We did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff involved; in fact, no action, illegal or otherwise, was ever taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers,” Harshbarger said in a statement. “Instead, the videos represent the byproduct of ACORN’s longstanding management weaknesses, including a lack of training, a lack of procedures and a lack of onsite supervision.”