In this photo taken Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009, new Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, sits with his comrade Waliur Rehman during a meeting with media in Sararogha in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border. (AP)

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Full boil in Afghanistan today. Helicopters down. Fourteen Americans dead. Anti-American protest in the streets of Kabul.

The Taliban crowing. But what is the Taliban? Is it a patched-together crew of outback opportunists that might be bought off, brought in, worked with to defuse Afghanistan and let the U.S. and NATO ramp down?

Is it a stone-cold ally of Al Qaeda committed to global war with the United States that must defeated?

Is it something else? The answer is central to America’s decision on troop levels for Afghanistan.

This hour, On Point: We’re looking again at the Taliban.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Peter Bergen, longtime journalist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, where he co-directs the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative. He’s author of “The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader,” and editor of the Af-Pak Channel, at ForeignPolicy.com.  Read Peter’s piece on the Taliban-al-Qaeda merger in The New Republic.

Michael Semple, regional specialist on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard. He’s worked in the Af-Pak region for more than 20 years, most recently as the deputy head of the EU Mission to Afghanistan.  His new book is “Reconciliation in Afghanistan.”  Read Michael’s piece on “Flipping the Taliban” in Foreign Affairs.

Read journalist David Rohde’s account of being held hostage by the Taliban for 7 months,  in the New York Times.

Lt. Col. William McCollough, Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion 5th Marines, talks with local elders during a planned meeting, in Nawa district, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Oct. 6. (AP)

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Decision time is looming on U.S. troops and Afghanistan. Again this week, the White House war council meets in the Situation Room. On the table, a Pentagon request for 40,000 — maybe 60,000 or 80,000 – more troops in the field.

This is a watershed decision. Huge. Yet much of the public debate seems far from realities on the ground: the bomb-scarred streets and mountain passes and distant outposts up against the Taliban.

This hour, On Point: We’ll go to correspondents reporting from the heart of the conflict, for ground truth, on-the-ground reality, in Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Kabul, Afghanistan, is Laura King, foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. She reported recently on an attack on U.S. bases near the Pakistani border that left eight Americans dead.

Joining us from Essex, Connecticut, is Pam Constable, foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. She has been covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1998. She is now based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and reported recently on Afghan attitudes toward the U.S. troop presence.

And from New York, we’re joined by Martin Smith, documentary filmmaker and correspondent for the PBS series Frontline. Winner of four Emmys and three George Polk Awards, his many Frontline documentaries include “Return of the Taliban” (2006), “In Search of Al Qaeda” (2002), and “Hunting bin Laden” (1999/2001). His new documentary, “Obama’s War,” based on his on-the-ground reporting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, premieres tonight on PBS.

U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines, run out to assist after a helicopter dropped an emergency water resupply outside a compound in Afghanistan's Helmand province, on July 8, 2009. (AP)

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It’s full battle time in Afghanistan. American troop levels surging. Daily firefights, roadside bombings, suicide attacks. Planes and helicopters going down. Poppy fields and opium stores ablaze.

Coalition forces are on the move, fighting, dying. Just three weeks in, this month, July, is already the deadliest for U.S. troops in nearly eight years of Afghan war.

A new top U.S. commander is armed with a new strategy: “clear, hold and build.” But the Taliban has strategies, too. And critics now call the war “Obama’s Vietnam.”

This hour, On Point: We’ll go to the heart of the fighting, and thinking, in Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Kabul, Afghanistan, is Laura King, reporter for The Los Angeles Times. She’s recently been in the country’s far eastern region, near the Pakistan border, at Forward Operating Base Salerno. Her piece in today’s LA Times reports on a new wave of coordinated Taliban attacks.

Also from Kabul we’re joined by Pamela Constable, reporter for The Washington Post. She’s just back from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, the focal point of the current coalition push. She’s also been in Faizabad recently, in the country’s remote northeast.

From Hardin, Montana, we’re joined by Gretchen Peters, a journalist who has covered the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for more than decade with the Associated Press and ABC News. She is author of the new book, “Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda.”

From Monterey, California, we’re joined by Kalev Sepp, professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and special forces officer. From 2007 to January 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Capabilities, helping to oversee global counterterrorism policy.

More links:

We’ve posted a roundup of videos and photo galleries on the recent fighting in Helmand and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

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Of all the countries in all the world, Pakistan generates the hottest headlines lately.

North Korea comes close, with its nukes. But Pakistan has nukes, plus Al Qaeda, plus the Taliban, plus near civil war, plus drones, plus a hot American war in Afghanistan right next door.

Debut novelist Ali Sethi is Pakistani and 24, an American-educated son of Lahore, son of prominent Pakistani journalist parents, now looking to make sense of the cultural roots of his own country’s trials. His new book is “The Wish Maker.”

This hour, On Point: The life behind the headlines out of Pakistan, with novelist Ali Sethi.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Ali Sethi joins us from New York. He grew up in Pakistan, the son of prominent Pakistani journalists, and went to college in the United States. He currently lives in Lahore. His work has been published in The Nation and The New York Times. His debut novel, out yesterday, is “The Wish Maker.”

Here’s a video in which Ali speaks about the book:

A sign for a Bank of America branch is shown in downtown Philadelphia, Thursday, May 7, 2009. (AP)

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Stress tests, infidelity, job loss and Manny Ramirez in the news this week.

The Obama administration put a positive spin on what they found in the big banks’ books. But losses could still hit $600 billion. Job losses last month: another half million-plus. But that’s a lot better than the month before.

Afghan and Pakistani presidents in Washington. Elizabeth Edwards on Oprah with John’s wayward ways. Santa Barbara burns. And another Major League Baseball slugger up on drug allegations and out for 50 games.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

What’s your top story this week? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is David Leonhardt, economics columnist for The New York Times and staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. His recent interview with President Obama was the magazine’s cover story last Sunday.

Also from Washington we’re joined by Perry Bacon, national political reporter for The Washington Post.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier with a rocket launcher stands guard as local residents gather close to the site of suicide bombing on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, on Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP)

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The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan are sitting down with Barack Obama today at the White House. One with a country in desperate trouble. One with a country in desperate trouble — plus nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is a significant nuclear power, with maybe a hundred very real nuclear bombs. It also has a Taliban insurgency on the march only 60 miles from its capitol, a military of uncertain capacity and uncertain loyalty, and a hovering Al Qaeda that all assume would love to have its own nukes for terror.

This hour, On Point: Pakistan’s frightening instability, and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

What do you see coming from Pakistan? If the country blows up, what about its bombs? Do you fear they will be everywhere? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

 Joining us from Islamabad is Mosharraf Zaidi, columnist for Pakistan’s biggest English-language newspaper, The News, and for the Egyptian paper al-Shorouk. His work also appears in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Joining us from Washington is David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. He reported earlier this week on increasing U.S. concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

In our studio we’re joined by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he tracked Al Qaeda’s efforts to obtain nuclear arms. Before that he spent 23 years at the CIA, where he was a senior officer sent to Pakistan to determine whether nuclear technology had been passed to Osama bin Laden. He is currently senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Mowatt-Larssen contributes to an online discussion, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Scenarios, U.S. Solutions,” at NYTimes.com.

And from Washington we’re joined by Stephen Cohen, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. His books include “Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia” and “The Idea of Pakistan.”

More links:

As Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari heads to the White House today, The New York Times reports this morning on his efforts to reassure Washington about his government’s stability and its campaign to repel the Taliban.

In an opinion piece in yesterday’s Washington Post titled “Pakistan’s Critical Hour,” Pakistani journalist (and past On Point guest) Ahmed Rashid writes: “Pakistan is on the brink of chaos, and Congress is in a critical position: U.S. lawmakers can hasten that fateful process, halt it or even help turn things around.”

U.S. soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division patrol in the outskirts of Bagram north of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday, March 8, 2009. President Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American forces already in the country. (AP)

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He took charge as commander-in-chief on January 20. But as of last Friday, Afghanistan is well and truly President Obama’s war. With Pakistan sewn right in.

The new president is sending 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan, on top of the 17,000 additional combat troops headed there. With the 38,000 U.S. troops already in the country, that will be the highest number since the war began. Plus new billions for Pakistan.

All to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Queda,” he says. Will it work? The pressure is on.

This hour, On Point: Weighing the Obama plan for Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Are you with the president on this war? On the “Af-Pak” challenge? Do we have a choice?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Kabul is Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Afghanistan bureau chief for National Public Radio.

Joining us from Washington, D.C., is Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute and author of the new book “The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free” and 2004’s “Exiting Iraq: How the U.S. Must End the Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda.”

And from Gig Harbor, Washington, is Thomas Donnelly, defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institut and author, with Frederick Kagan, of “Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power.” He was policy group director and staff member for the House Armed Services Committee and was deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century from 1999 to 2002.

Daniyal Mueenuddin

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The headlines from Pakistan are relentless, and all too familiar. But Pakistani author Daniyal Mueenuddin, in his stunning debut collection of short stories, goes well beyond the predictable, into the brooding, tender heart of his country.

Friendships and love affairs; poverty and ambition; the dramas, large and small, of rural life. Behind it all, a tapestry of banyan trees, mango groves, decaying feudal estates. And history, in the eyes of maids, laborers, and landowners.

This hour, On Point: Daniyal Mueenuddin on his Pakistan.

You can join the conversation. What’s your question about life in Pakistan? Pakistani, South Asian listeners, do you hear familiar voices in Daniyal Mueenuddin’s stories?

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation this week.

Guest:

Daniyal Mueenuddin joins us from New York.  His debut collection , “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” has captivated critics, with strong reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He grew up in Pakistan and was educated here in the United States. He worked in the U.S., but moved back to Pakistan years ago and now tends a farm in a rural stretch of Punjab province, where he grows mango, cotton, and sugarcane.

You can read the collection’s title story at The New Yorker.

Adm. William J. Fallon in February 2007. (AP)

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Four-star Admiral William J. Fallon had a brilliant Navy career and a mouth, it was said, that could peel paint off the walls.

He flew fighter missions over Vietnam, rose to head of the Pacific Command, then was named by George W. Bush Combatant Commander of U.S. Central Command — Centcom — the U.S. military’s top commander in the white-hot region from Egypt to Pakistan.

He oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and abruptly retired after Esquire magazine called him the last man standing between Washington and war with Iran.

This hour, On Point: The admiral who spoke his mind.

You can join the conversation. What’s your question for the fighter-pilot admiral who once ran your country’s wars? What’s your question for William Fallon today on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Gaza? On “smart power”? On Al Qaeda?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Adm. William J. (“Fox”) Fallon, retired four-star Navy admiral, Commander of CENTCOM from March 2007 to March 2008, Commander of PACOM (Pacific Command) from Feb 2005 to March 2007, and currently a Robert E. Wilhelm fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies.

More links:

“The Man Between War and Peace,” the Esquire profile by Thomas P.M. Barnett that caused so much controversy.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan, writing in March 2008,  looked at the context surrounding Fallon’s departure.

Fire engulfs a part of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India.

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In three shocking, bloody days, the whole world got a crash course in the urban landscape of Mumbai.

It was already India’s most cosmopolitan city, financial center, Bollywood movie hub. Now, it’s a familiar front-page map — a blood-stained city guide of terrorist destruction.

The Leopold Cafe. The Taj Mahal hotel. The train station. The Jewish welcome center. And on, and on.

Today, Mumbai is already back on its feet. But its three days of terrorist guns and grenades are still echoing loudly, dangerously, from India to Pakistan to Washington.

This hour, On Point: After the terror in Mumbai.

You can join the conversation. What did you see in the flames and gunfire and death toll in Mumbai? Who do you blame? And what now?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Mumbai is Somini Sengupta, India bureau chief for The New York Times. She’s been in Mumbai covering the story since last week.

From London, we’re joined by Rahul Roy-Chaudhury. A senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, he previously served on the National Security Council Secretariat in the Indian Prime Minister’s Office.

From Madrid, we’re joined by Ahmed Rashid. A Pakistani journalist and author, he’s a renowned expert on the Taliban and security issues in Central and South Asia. His most recent book, published this year, is “Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.”

And joining us from Washington is Lisa Curtis. A former CIA analyst posted to the U.S. embassies in both India and Pakistan, she has served as a senior advisor in the State Department and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee handling South Asia issues for the former chairman Sen. Richard Lugar. She is now a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

A portrait of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is burnt by demonstrators during a rally in Multan, Pakistan on Aug. 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)

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In the years since 9/11, in the country that has become the hideout and base of Al Queda and the Taliban, the United States poured billions of dollars into the regime of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

He was a general who took power in a bloodless coup. He was disdainful of the workings of democracy. He was America’s man, formally, in the war on terror.

And today he’s headed out — resigning in a hail of criticism from Pakistanis fed up with the Musharraf era. And the Taliban is on the rise.

This hour, On Point: Musharraf goes, and Pakistan and the U.S. ask, what next in the world’s most dangerous neighborhood?

You can join the conversation. Is this a crisis? A triumph for democracy? A turn toward hope? Or chaos? Tell us what you think.

-Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

joining us from Islamabad, Pakistan, is Candace Rondeaux, foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. She reports here on Musharraf’s resignation.

Joining us in our studio is Adil Najam, professor of international relations and director of the Pardee Center at Boston University.

From East Hanover, New Jersey, we’re joined by Azmat Hassan, former Pakistani ambassador to Morocco, Syria, Lebanon and Malaysia, and former adviser to Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. He is now a professor at the Whitehead School of Diplomacy at Seton Hall University.

And joining us from Washington is Daniel Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff for South and Central Asia.

* * *

Multimedia:

The AP offers this video report on Pervez Musharraf’s resignation earlier today:

Decision, destruction, and swirling debate. The Supreme Court gives a big win to Guantanamo detainees. Pakistan claims a U.S. air strike killed its troops. In Europe, President Bush talks tough on Iran.

Back home, hell and high water. Floods and a tornado devastate the Midwest. Four Boy Scouts are dead.

Oil prices get scarier. Tainted tomatoes sicken hundreds.

And on the campaign trail, McCain and Obama spar over the economy and Iraq.

This hour, On Point: Our news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

- Jane Clayson

Guests:

Carol Giacomo, editorial board member for The New York Times

Steve Chapman, editorial writer and columnist for The Chicago Tribune

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

Benazir Bhutto was not just a beloved symbol of democracy to millions of Pakistanis. She was also the keystone of Washington’s long-shot plans for some kind of stability in Pakistan. She was the Bush administration’s last best hope for pulling Pakistan back from the brink.

Her very return to Pakistan two months ago was part of a high-priority American push for power-sharing in Pakistan, as an alternative to chaos. And now, Bhutto is gone.

As Donald Rumsfeld once said, “stuff happens.” But this is bad stuff.

This hour, On Point: as Pakistan grieves, we look at the aftershocks of the Benazir Bhutto assassination.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Helene Cooper, diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times.

Ahmed Rashid, journalist and author based in Lahore, Pakistan.

Stephen Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Adil Najam, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center at Boston University.

Ellen Laipson, CEO and President of the Henry L. Stimpson Center.

It is the biggest frontline U.S. ally in President Bush’s war on terror, and today Pakistan is in a state of emergency. Constitution suspended. Elections postponed. Supreme Court chief justice fired. Streets full of police. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of protestors and opponents of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s military ruler, are under arrest.

Critics call it martial law. Washington has shipped billions to Musharraf since 9/11, and urged him not to take this step. He did it anyway.

Al Qaeda lives in Pakistan. So do nuclear weapons, and many dreams. Now this.

This hour, On Point: what Pakistan’s state of emergency means.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

David Rohde, reporter for The New York Times in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and an advisor to former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

Adil Najam, professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, columnist for The News International, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan, and founding editor of the blog pakistaniat.com.

Anthony Cordesman, expert in national security strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf won a messy and still legally disputed election over the weekend. Looks like another term for the U.S.-backed strongman. Maybe he’ll take off his military uniform, or maybe not.

Just to add to the confusion, a U.S.-backed rival to Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, may return now from exile. Meanwhile, a battle in Pakistan’s wild west, where Osama bin Laden may lurk, left 80 dead. And more Afghanistan violence leads back to, well, Pakistan.

America’s stakes there are huge. Democracy is blowing in the wind, but so is chaos.

This hour, On Point: Pakistan’s disputed election, and the indisputable stakes for America.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Shahan Mufti, reporter for The Christian Science Monitor.

Adil Najam, professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, is a columnist for The News International, an English-language newspaper in Pakistan, and founding editor of the blog “pakistaniat.com”.

Samina Ahmed, South Asia Project Director, International Crisis Group.

Rick Barton, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , is a former official at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations.