Slow Day

Haven't posted much today, and this, alas, will probably close me out. Have to knock out a few chores, and then I'm heading out to a Christmas party this evening.

Spent a lot of time trying to google up the answer to Timshel's quiz to no avail. Check the link out. The paragraph is an excellent summary of the mindset of a neo-con. For those who feel challenged, fair warning: I made two wrong guesses in his comments, whereupon Ricky put me out of my misery and revealed the author.

The paragraph is dead on accurate, if you ask me.

Otherwise, between work projects, I surfed the usual sites. Going back to the New York Times, I chanced upon this odd caption to a photo on the main web page:

Afghan Highway Is Resurfaced
The once-torturous but now silkily reconstructed road between Kabul and Kandahar was formally completed today, just as President Bush had promised more than a year ago. (my italics)

I say odd because it's not normally the case that The Times would add the "just as President Bush promised" line to what is admittedly a "good news in the war on terror piece," and, combined with the fact that precious little news emerges from Afghanistan these days, it piqued my curiousity just enough. Here's a sample of what I found:

The once-torturous but now silkily reconstructed road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar was formally completed today, just as President Bush had promised President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan more than a year ago that it would be.

OK, this is good news, right? But wait a second:

In truth, the road, whose reconstruction was overseen by the Louis Berger Group, is not totally done: it has only a single layer of asphalt, with additional layers to be laid next spring, when shoulders will be built and signs placed.

But if it isn't complete, why are they trumpeting that it IS complete?

"President Bush personally committed himself to the success of this project and he is a man who keeps his promises," Mr. [Zalmay] Khalilzad [US ambassador to Afghanistan] said, referring to Mr. Bush's determination that the highway be finished before the end of the year.

And

For Mr. [Hamid] Karzai [Afghanistan President], who has been defending the achievements of his presidency this week at an assembly to ratify a new Afghan constitution, today's inauguration was a way to show that his government can deliver development and security.

Ah, politics. But of course. The road is completed, but that doesn't mean it's COMPLETE. Now, to be fair, here's another lifting from the article:

But even as is, the road will allow for easy travel in winter...

Which means, I guess, that Afghan cars aren't exactly the speediest on the planet.

And then, as always when a story like this makes the paper, buried paragraphs provide some telling details that a headline reader will skip over:

But the road's inauguration was marred by the fact that not everyone feels secure enough to use the road. As construction on the road proceeded, so did attacks by a resurgent Taliban, who killed four Afghans securing the road and seriously wounded 15 people. Eventually almost 1,000 guards had to be deployed to protect construction work.

Mr. Karzai prayed at a plaque to memorialize the dead, calling them "the martyrs of the reconstruction of Afghanistan." He and others spoke of a Turkish engineer who was kidnapped and then released by the Taliban, and of two Indian engineers who are still being held.

"They will fail in their attempts to stop Afghanistan's progress," Mr. Khalilzad said of those launching the attacks.

But some southern delegates for the constitutional assembly who attended today's road opening said they had been to flown to Kabul for the assembly, or avoided the road, out of concern for their safety.

The continuing threats were underscored by the huge security presence on the stretch, lined with snow-dusted hills and barren poplars, between Kabul and the dedication site. Mr. Karzai's American-guarded convoy drove down a road cleared of traffic, lined with armored personnel carriers and troops, and watched over by Apache helicopters.

Mr. Karzai did not drive back to Kabul, instead flying back in a Chinook helicopter.

I think the road is an apt metaphor for the "progress" in Afghanistan. It's complete, except it's not, the president and many of the dignitaries who attended the opening didn't actually USE the road, and the Taliban, while not stopping the construction, managed to generate fear and terror to the point that construction crews had to be heavily guarded. And yet, this is somehow considered a success.

Other Topics

Again, sorry for the slow posting today, but I've been trying to work out some thoughts in my head that I hope to have on this page pretty soon. It could potentially be a long post, but my editor and I (that's a joke) will do my best to keep the verbiage down to a reasonable level. Main ideas will include lies, myths, the political process, and the media. I hope to be able to point to some specific links in support of the opinions I'll be posting--provided they haven't yet gone to the ether archives.

Hope this doesn't bore any of my low-readership to death.

Oh--and here's one more diversion that caught my eye today--actually, it was in The Times last week, and I just got around to linking to it: Centennial of Flight. And it surprised me that this article didn't make the special section. Short version: Tomorrow, a replica of the original Wright biplane will attempt to duplicate the first sustained powered flight that the Wright Brothers accomplished in 1903.

Interesting article. Full disclosure: when I was a kid, my family lived in Virginia (my dad was a military officer--a Naval Aviator, in fact). On a school field trip we went to Kitty Hawk, which was a lot of fun for a child. I recall running down the hill where the memorial is located, having limited success in flying a homemade kite (it was too damn heavy--so much for my engineering skills), visiting the museum, and seeing a replica of the track that was used to launch the original Flyer. Man, the first flight was SHORT. The signpost at the 120 foot mark looked close enough to the take off point that it was hard to think of it as an actual flight.

So, if you occasionally like to check out science articles for the lay person, or if historical re-enactment is your thing (for the record: I'm not a big Civil War reenactment buff, but I can somewhat understand why some folks are--likewise, other reenactment stuff is hit-or-miss for me: great if I'm interesed, ho hum if not)--keep an eye out especially for any news footage, provided that the conditions at Kitty Hawk allow for this to proceed. While not being a big, big fan of the Wrights, I certainly appreciate their impact on history, and if I was able to be in attendance, sure, I'd go in a heartbeat.