THIS MODERN WORLD

I saw some Republican talking head on one of the endless parade of cable news shows I half-watch all day while I work, talking about the Louisiana runoff election and explaining that the Republicans were so concerned about this one, despite their current Senate majority, because, um, you know, it never hurts to have an extra seat.

This seems to be a more plausible explanation. (Via Cursor.)

It’s been a long time, at least in terms of dog years and American memories, but some of you may recall a little overseas adventure which has subsequently been re-christened, so to speak, the war for the liberation of Afghanistan.

Turns out — get this — the war hasn’t been such an unambiguous success after all. In fact, a lot of things that crazed left-wing peaceniks warned about at the time are coming to pass.

From Time magazine:

If the U.S. has won the war in Afghanistan, maybe somebody should tell the enemy it’s time to surrender. The bad guys are still out there, undetectable in the rocky, umber hills of eastern Afghanistan — until they strike, which they do with growing frequency, accuracy and brazenness. These days American forward bases are coming under rocket or mortar fire three times a week on average. Apache pilots sometimes see angry red arcing lines of tracer bullets rising toward their choppers from unseen gunners hidden in Afghanistan’s saw-blade ridges. Roads frequented by special forces are often mined with remote-controlled explosives, a new tactic al-Qaeda fighters picked up from their Chechen comrades fighting the Russians. With phantom enemy fighters stepping up attacks and U.S. forces making little headway against them, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt compelled to acknowledge last week, “We’ve lost a little momentum there, to be frank.”

From the LA Times:

Given enough political and economic willpower, the U.S. could rebuild the main roads, sink thousands of new wells and help revitalize the devastated school and university systems. Instead, the U.S. is training a much-needed national army but turning a blind eye to broader reconstruction.

We did it for Germany, but Afghanistan is yesterday’s problem. American statesman George Kennan foresaw the problem during World War II, when he was assigned one summer to Baghdad. “Our government is technically incapable of conceiving and promulgating a long-term consistent policy toward areas remote from its own territory,” he wrote. The problem, he added, is that “our actions in the field of foreign affairs are the convulsive reactions of politicians to an internal political life dominated by vocal minorities.”

It was that lack of a long-term policy that led us to walk away from Afghanistan in the early 1990s, after we had pumped the country full of weapons to defeat the Soviets, leaving it in chaos and eventually to Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden. Now we are again moving on to other things, such as Iraq.

From USA Today:

Other Afghans also say life here is different — and far more dangerous — than they expected a year ago:

* The U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai has little control outside of Kabul, the capital. And the new government is racked with dissension.
* Warlords continue to control much of the countryside. Already, several factional power struggles have broken out.
* Extremists, in hiding outside the well-protected capital, wait for an opportunity to strike. Taliban and al-Qaeda forces lurk in the mountains. U.S. troops on patrol in search of terrorists in eastern Afghanistan face almost daily hostility and attacks.

“The fundamentalists and the warlords are in charge. The gunmen have the authority and the power, and actual rights the government says we have are not given,” Mujahed says.

But apart from all that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

All via Cursor.