President Obama made a rare but brief side trip out of Washington this weekend to not talk about healthcare.

After a nearly 13-hour unannounced flight, the made a quick six-hour visit to Afghanistan, his first as president. The Democrat met with President Hamid Karzai, his cabinet, the U.S. ambassador and commanding general and spoke to American troops assembled at Bagram Airfield.

He spoke for about 20 minutes (full text below). The trip's overall message the White House wanted to send, even before Obama began his 13-hour flight home, was continuing to keep the heat on Karzai's government to govern smarter and crack down on corruption.

To the troops, Obama said thanks, adding, "Those folks back home are relying on you." He also went into some detail on how essential is their work in Afghanistan to American security.

Since the U.S. troops have no choice about where or why they are where they are, the national security part of Obama's remarks were aimed more as a reminder for those same folks back home, who've been indicating to pollsters a souring attitude toward the faraway conflict under way since late 2001.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Remarks by President Obama to U.S. troops in Afghanistan

THE PRESIDENT:  How’s it going, Bagram?  (Applause.) Well, you know, it turns out that the American people, they let me use this plane called Air Force One. And so I thought I’d come over and say hello.  (Applause.)  

Couple of people I want to thank, in addition to Sergeant Major Eric Johnson for the outstanding introduction and his great service.  I want to thank Major General Mike Scaparrotti.  (Applause.) Thank you for your great work as commanding general. I want to thank Ms. Dawn Liberi, who is the senior civilian representative of Regional Command East, for her outstanding work; and Brigadier General Steven Kwast, commander -- (applause) -- commander 455th Air Expeditionary Wing. Thank you all for your....

The ceremony takes places on Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol. Surrounded by statues of some of the nation's most treasured icons, nearly 200 women who served as military pilots during World War II as part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program will be on  hand to receive the  Congressional Gold Medal.

[For the record: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the women would receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.]

Recruited to fill a manpower shortage among male fliers, 25,000 women applied. Nearly 1,100 completed training. This little-known band of female pilots -- the first women in history trained to fly U.S. military aircraft -- did everything the men did except participate in combat. They flew trailers so male soldiers could take practice shots at the targets they pulled along. They flew bombardiers so male pilots could practice dropping bombs. They flew test planes, delivered supplies and piloted every plane the Air Force had in its arsenal. By war's end, 38 had been killed -- their bodies returned home and buried at their families' expense.

In 1977, Congress finally granted them veteran status. This week, they finally get their due in Washington.

Sitting in the audience at the congressional ceremony will be 92-year-old Carol Brinton Selfridge. In an interview with the Ticket last week that she conducted on Skype, Selfridge reminisced about her adventures -- about the difficulty of finding a uniform to fit her 6-foot-tall frame, about soloing in a rare snowstorm at the base in Sweetwater, Texas, about the granddaughter who was so inspired by her story that she too became a pilot, now Lt. Col. Christy Kayser-Cook.

Asked for her advice to young women, she said, "Do what you want, and there's nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it. I did, and it all worked out beautifully."

Nine months before the war ended, the WASP program was disbanded. The female fliers were told to come home at their own expense and not to talk about their achievements.

Now, they are not only sharing their memories but their photos as well. Thanks to Selfridge's daughter Sharon Kayser, the Ticket is proud to present a sampling of family photos, below.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photos: At top, Carol Brinton Selfridge in 1944 at Victorville Air Force base, where, according to daughter Sharon Kayser, she flew bombardier cadets over the desert for bombing practice. "Many of the women needed to carry pillows out to the planes to sit up high enough," said Sharon. "She never had to worry about that."
Below, from top, Selfridge stands with two of the Women Airforce Service pilots with whom she roomed in the barracks.
Selfridge in uniform and her daughters Linda, left, and Sharon.
The pilot in flying gear.
Selfridge in more recent times.
And Selfridge with her granddaughter Lt. Col. Christy Kayser-Cook at Scott Air Force Base on Aug. 31, 2005, on the occasion of Kayser-Cook's promotion to lieutenant colonel. All photos courtesy of Sharon Kayser.

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Women have served dutifully and valiantly on U.S. naval surface warships for the last 17 years.

But now the Navy has decided to take gender-mixing to a new underwater low -- assigning women to submarines for the first time.

Subs, as you might imagine, have somewhat confined quarters and have remained one of the dwindling number of assignments excluded to females, who are able to have separate living quarters on surface ships.

According to ABC News, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus thinks women on subs "is a great idea and the right thing to do."

It takes about 18 months to train a sub officer, so women won't be shipping out there anytime soon. But in 18 years or so, the Navy figures, an American sub could have a female commander. Meanwhile, the service will start small, assigning only female officers to submarines at first -- and only in pairs, of course.

Now that the Navy has made its command military decision to broaden seaborne career opportunities for females, land-based Congress, which itself has woefully few career women, has 30 days -- no, make that 28 now -- to interfere. After all, cramming 118 young male sailors in a long metal tube driven by nuclear fission armed with warheads that could end humanity and submerging all that in 400 feet of deep ocean for 90 straight days with two women, what could possibly go wrong there? They're professionals first.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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All of a sudden, it seems like we're getting smarter at combating the terrorists who have plagued U.S. policy and politics since the 9/11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 Americans.

The Pentagon's new budget, released Monday, calls for more elite Special Ops troops, more aerial drones and more financial aide to Yemen, home of the Al Qaeda branch that sponsored the failed Christmas Day bomber. Sending small teams of Army commandos, Navy Seals and CIA operatives to target specific insurgents is the mantra of Gen. David Petraeus: "You've got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable."

As Special Ops hunt down the bad guys, thousands of U.S. troops newly arrived in Afghanistan are being trained to win public support by showcasing good government, economic growth and security. According to the Wall Street Journal, Gen. Stanley McChrystal told his staff in Kabul "It's not the number of people you kill -- it's the number of people you convince." 

The White House even proposed a $5-billion increase in the State Department's 2011 budget -- which almost never happens -- most of which is intended for programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Those three countries also got the chunk of this year's $4.5 billion in new funds.

There are some signs that the West may even be winning the toughest battle of all -- the fight for public opinion on the Muslim street.

In December, a team of scholars at the the Center for Combating Terrorism at West Point Military released a study -- based on Arabic media reports --- documenting all the deaths from terrorists incidents where Al Qaeda took credit. The news: Muslims are much more likely to be killed in an Al Qaeda attack than Westerners. From 2004 to 2008, the study says, only 15% of victims were Westerners.

Now, the report is circulating on websites in Arab countries. A Kuwaiti newspaper published the findings. And President Obama,  in an interview with YouTube, said yesterday that "Al Qaeda is probably the biggest killer of innocent Muslims of any entity out there." 

Could the tide be turning?

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Wreckage at Ground Zero after 9/11 terror attack. Credit: Reuters

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It could be the least weighty -- but most interesting -- reversal of former Defense Secretary Donald H.  Rumsfeld's policies.

On Monday, very quietly, Pentagon chief Robert M. Gates asked his top military officers to stop wearing their battle fatigues to the office -- as ordered by Rumsfeld in the harrowing days after 9/11.

Now, in their business uniforms bedecked with medals, the Pentagon's top brass look more ready for business than war.

Already, some critics see the change -- which went into effect at the first of the year -- as part of the Obama administration's more nuanced approach to security, a step back from the torture tactics and war footing that was part of the Bush administration's war on terror.

But Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the change is meant only to reflect that "this building is the headquarters of the United States military in our nation’s capital city.”

“I don’t think the secretary believes that how they dress connotes whether they are on a war footing within this building,” he said. “Far more than one’s attire is how one behaves and the urgency with which one goes about doing the job in support of our war fighters.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Getty Images

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Later today, President Obama plans to release the details of a security probe into what went wrong in the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a jet bound for Detroit.

In the meantime, National Security Adviser James L. Jones told USA Today that Americans probably will feel "a certain shock" at how many red flags were missed despite the massive influx of federal dollars and manpower invested in the effort to thwart terrorism since 9/11.

Calling the November shooting at Ft. Hood in Texas the first strike and the near-bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 a second strike, the former Marine general said Obama "certainly doesn't want that third strike, and neither does anybody else."

The news about missed red flags in the Christmas Day plot comes as the Pentagon released another report citing rising recidivism among prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay prison.

 said Pentagon officials are working to declassify the report, which shows that 1 in 5 prisoners released from Gitmo are either confirmed or suspected to have engaged in terrorism again.That’s almost double the 11% recidivism rate reported in December 2008 -- and likely to stoke a continuing debate over whether to close the prison.

Obama repeated this week that he has not abandoned plans to close Guantanamo Bay, calling it a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. But with renewed focus on Yemen as a haven for the Christmas Day bomber and other terrorists, the White House has stopped releases to Yemen.

-- Johanna Neuman

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National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones suggested Sunday that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who has eluded capture by U.S. forces since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks he orchestrated, may periodically slip into Afghanistan from his remote cave in the mountains of Pakistan.

But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the truth was that the United States hasn't had good intelligence on Bin Laden's whereabouts in a long time. "I think it has been years," he said.

"Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is," Gates said on ABC's "This Week."  "If we did, we'd go get him."

Last week a Taliban suspect in Pakistan claimed Bin Laden had been in Afghanistan earlier this year, but Gates said the best estimate is that Bin Laden is in the rugged, lawless region of North Waziristan, along the border between the two countries.

Either way, as Jones said on CNN's "State of the Union," "We're going to have to get after that to make sure that [Bin Laden]... is either, once again, on the run or captured or killed."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Getty Images

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In the lead-up to President Obama's major Afghanistan war speech last week at West Point, all of the leaks -- and thus, the media and reader/viewer focus -- was on the quantifiable number of fresh U.S. troops the Democrat had decided to dispatch.

Over the preceding 14 weeks it took to reach his decision, there were many versions, ranging from 12,000 to the full 60,000 reportedly requested by the allied ground commander. The last 24 hours, however, the leaks from unidentified administration sources centered on 30,000.

That was also the selective lead excerpt from the president's 4,582-word address, released by the White House a couple of hours before he actually uttered the words, to help shape news coverage and steer public expectations.

Indeed, that worked. Most news reports led with that hard number while also mentioning the president's vow that their assignment was short-term and they'd start leaving just 18 months from now, in....

As The Ticket reported earlier today in this space, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder was on the Senate Judiciary Committee hot seat defending his decision to bring the alleged 9/11 terrorist masterminds onto U.S. soil for civilian trials instead of keeping them far away in Guantanamo Bay for a military tribunal.

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, himself a former federal prosecutor, says he's amazed at Holder's simplicity claim and remains unconvinced that such a move, which could make New York City a target for potential new attack, makes any legal sense whatsoever.

Speaking of military tribunals, we went back into the video archives and found this C-SPAN tape below. Holder might want to watch it.

It contains his boss, Barack Obama, a brief member of that same Senate, in 2006 stating that a military tribunal was a perfectly fine way of handling such dangerous individuals as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Obama said the fight against terrorism was "an extraordinarily difficult war" where terrorists could plot undetected from within our own borders.

The freshman Illinois senator was defending a legislative amendment and pointed out that a military tribunal for Mohammed seemed just fine to him.

"The irony of the underlying bill as it's written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He's gonna have counsel. He's gonna be able to present evidence to rebut the government's case.... I think we will convict him. And I think justice will be carried out."

Obama, meanwhile, continued his journeys around Asia and told....

...inquiring reporters that he has never been closer to a strategic decision on what to do next about the deteriorating military situation in Afghanistan.

He also confirmed to Fox News' Major Garrett that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility would not, in fact, be closed by the end of next month as the new president had promised on his first day in office. The latest target is now sometime next year.

In late August the Democratic president received the recommendations of the commanding general in Afghanistan, involving the addition of more U.S. troops to the 68,000 already on the ground from Obama's first troop surge last March.

The general's recommendations reportedly also said that allies had about one year left to save the strategic situation there. Nearly a quarter of that year have passed in deliberations. As The Ticket reported here earlier today, an angry Obama has said that leaks of such contents are firing offenses.

Obama says it might be a few more weeks before he makes his final decision, but that when he did the American people would be clear about it and what his goals were.

As we reported here Tuesday, new polls indicate the American people have moved further along in their decision-making process about the war than the president. And their emerging decision appears to be that the eight-year conflict wasn't and isn't worth the cost.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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In a round of interviews before he left China, President Obama made clear that he was not happy with sources within his administration who had leaked details about his deliberations on Afghanistan.

"For people to be releasing information during the course of deliberations, where we haven't made final decisions yet, I think is not appropriate," he said.

CBS' Chip Reid asked the president if he was as angry as Defense Secretary Robert Gates about the leaks.

"I think I'm angrier than Bob Gates about it," he replied. "We have deliberations in the situation room for a reason; we're making life-and-death decisions that affect how our troops are able to operate in a theater of war. For people to be releasing info in the course of deliberations is not appropriate."

"A firing offense?" Reid inquired.

"Absolutely," Mr. Obama responded. 

And, in an interview with CNN, Obama promised to end the war in Afghanistan before he leaves office. 

"My preference would be not to hand off anything to the next president," he said. Perhaps thinking of the full plate that was left to him by President Bush, Obama added, "One of the things I'd like is the next president to be able to come in and say I've got a clean slate." 

Pledging to announce his decision with transparency, Obama said, "The American people will have a lot of clarity about what we're doing, how we're going to succeed, how much this thing is going to cost, what kind of burden does this place on our young men and women in uniform and, most importantly, what's the endgame on this thing." 

 -- Johanna Neuman

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The casualties are sobering --  nearly 1,500 deaths to date among U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

So are the stakes -- the prospect of a Taliban resurgence that likely would reverse recent gains for women and girls and the destabilization of neighboring Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons and Al Qaeda cells.

But as President Obama weighs a decision on whether to deploy more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, a new front in the debate is emerging in Washington -- the financial costs.

The White House Budget Office estimates that it will cost about $1 million for each additional soldier sent to Afghanistan. So, a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops -- which is what Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal is recommending -- would add $30 billion to $40 billion a year to the deficit.

At the Pentagon, the comptroller disagrees, estimating the cost of deploying and maintaining one soldier in Afghanistan for a full year  at $500,000. So, bottom line would be $15 billion to $20 billion.

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Obama recently made reference to the costs as one of the factors in his decision. In Japan on Friday, on the first stop of his eight-day visit to Asia, Obama said he was taking his time to deliberate because he wanted to make sure that "when I send young men and women into war, and I devote billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money, that it's making us safer." With costs and security in mind, he added, "our goal here ultimately has to be for the Afghan people to be able to be in a position to provide their own security. ...The United States cannot be engaged in an open-ended commitment."

An escalation in military spending could put Obama in the awkward position of winning Republican votes for the budget while losing Democratic ones for the policy. And a drain on the nation's bottom line also could imperil domestic programs favored by the White House.

A new surge, said Wisconsin Democrat David Obey, would "drain the spirit of the country ... as well as drain the U.S. Treasury, it would devour virtually any other priorities that the president or anyone in Congress had."

The added red ink is unlikely to make the decision any easier -- either for Obama or the public.

"It reflects the political climate," Georgetown University military analyst Christine Fair told Reuters. "The leadership is confused, we're broke, and most Americans don't know why we're there."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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At Arlington National Cemetery this morning, facing a steady rain and wearing a somber expression, President Obama participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Earlier, he and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a private breakfast for veterans and their families in the East Room at the White House.

And this afternoon he meets with his National Security team, his eighth such session, this time to review four options to address the growing insurgency in Afghanistan -- involving 15,000, 30,000 or 40,000 additional troops.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cautioned reporters that Obama is still weighing the alternatives.

"Anybody who tells you the president has made a decision ... doesn't have, in all honesty, the....