Now Onto Afghanistan, and Let's Win There

Uberdude has an interesting post and link regarding the other war. It's worth checking out:

The first hand account I have from a friend in Afghanistan at the moment is that the missions that the US forces are carrying out are extremely shoddy and ill prepared (he's an officer so I am just guessing he knows what he is talking about).

His link, to an MSNBC article, paints a rosier picture, including the claim that the capture of bin Forgotten is only a matter of time (I'd bet good money that it's also a matter of TIMING--mid-October, please, asked RoveBush).

For the record, I wasn't real happy with the invasion of Afghanistan, but I knew there wasn't much anyone could do--this country wanted REVENGE, and given that Osama was hiding out there--well, let's just say that was like buying the LOSING lottery ticket. Not that Afghanistan hadn't lost the lottery before: since 1978, the country has been torn asunder for little more than cold-war, and now, post cold-war bragging rights.

The number of people I heard in the days following 9/11 begging for Bush to "turn it into a parking lot" was more than a little disgusting. First, after some twenty years of non-stop war, there really wasn't much to bomb. I guess we managed to turn rubble into gravel, but that was about it. Second, as I've noted before, blasting away at the entire country because of bin Laden and his minions is kind of like blasting away St. Francisville because it was unlucky enough to be the hometown of Derrick Todd Lee.

But revenge is a powerful emotion, and it must be assuaged. So Bush went blasting away--but then, like a kid who discovers a new toy, and immediately leaves the old toy outside to rust away, he found it in Iraq. The result: Afghanistan is in a shambles, Iraq is a mess, the US is in fiscal deep water, and lord knows how--or who--is going to clean up the mess. If we'd stayed the course in Afghanistan, there was no guarantee that it would turn out ok--hell, the country has traditionally been the graveyard for imperialist armies--but it's damn certain that we'd be able to focus A LOT more on finally rebuilding the place to the extent that it could actually be called a country.

The overall lack of news coming from Afghanistan is a clear indication that nothing good is happening there. If there WAS, you can bet Rove would be crowing a storm.