Afghanistan update

Last week, Our President pardoned two turkeys and three war criminals.  Then he flew off to Afghanistan, where he announced resumption of peace talks with the Taliban.  The Taliban's response: "Huh?"

Presumably, this means negotiators will take up where they left off, with the Taliban agreeing not to attack NATO forces as they fully withdraw; and to hold separate peace negotiations with the Afghani government – in China.  While this is not good news for more westernized, urban Afghanis – particularly women – the frequently innocent victims of US bombing raids won't mind at all.  Anyway, nobody seems to have a better idea.

Clearly, the Taliban must recognize that a treaty with the United States may not be worth much, given US withdrawal from the Iran pact; and it's unlikely that Taliban leaders will feel any great obligation to follow through on their own commitments once foreign troop are gone from their country.  It's also unlikely that they will see a bitterly divided Afghani government as a credible negotiating partner, given the ongoing dispute between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah regarding who actually won the past couple of elections.

Of course, most Americans really don't care what happens in Afghanistan once our troops come home: so America's longest war finally may be coming to an end.

Briefs

The Mattis departure
While some are wondering whether the multi-talented Mick Mulvaney will be adding Defense to his expanding portfolio of responsibilities, there are potential candidates who could be a good deal worse.  The Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs is replete with Evangelical Christians in the mold of Franklin Graham, who will happily implement Our President's plans to purge the military of transgender troops, make life extremely difficult for out gays and lesbians, and do everything in his power to hasten the Apocalypse.

Syria
Tr*mp's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, pretty clearly, was a gift to Recip Tayyip Erdogan.  Abandoned by the United States, the Syrian Kurds will need somebody to protect them from an impending Turkish onslaught — and the only game left in town will be Bashir al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.  It's not hard to imagine a deal being made that will offer the Kurds some degree of autonomy; and it's no harder to imagine the effect that can have on the Kurds in Iraq.

Afghanistan
It's certainly true that US troops have been fighting in Afghanistan for far too long, but the decision to sharply reduce US forces at least should have been discussed with the NATO allies whose forces are serving there before the announcement was made.  It's been clear for a long time that the only resolution of the long war involves power sharing with the Taliban, but the upcoming withdrawal eliminates any motivation the mullahs may have had to negotiate.  Has anybody mentioned to Tr*mp that he's about to become the loser of America's longest war?

Afghanistan

Tr*mp's "foreign policy" consists of listening to "his" generals.  The generals want another 5000 troops to "stabilize" the country — not to win, mind you — we couldn't win with Obama's far larger "surge" — but just to delay losing the war until they're all "honorably" retired.  Who knows?  It might even lead to a round of negotiations!

Attempts at negotiation to date have been fruitless, largely because neither side seems to have much to offer the other.  Well, it's time to think outside the box.  Here are some ideas that just might work:

• Afghan government will be decentralized, with regional chieftains and warlords retaining their local power and meeting in a traditional loya jurga to make decisions that affect the nation as a whole.

• All foreign forces will leave Afghanistan, with Afghan leadership committing to subdue or expel foreign Islamist forces, including IS and al-Qaeda.

• NATO nations will contract to purchase the entire Afghan opium crop, thereby maintaining the Afghan economy and sharply reducing the availability of opioids on worldwide markets.

• Afghanistan will contract with multinational corporations based in NATO countries to exploit its deposits of rare earths and other minerals, creating cash incentives for all parties to the negotiations.

• The West will commit to end all efforts to influence Afghan religious practices, and let the Afghans handle their own political corruption problems in whatever ways they see fit.

A general consensus has emerged that "nation building" does not work, and that attempts to foment cultural revolutions in the Third World create nothing but chaos and antagonism.  If the West can live with Saudi Arabia under Sharia law, it can extend the same courtesy to Afghanistan.  Cultures change at their own rates, each in accordance with its own needs.

I'll pick up my Nobel Peace Prize in person, provided I can fly first-class.

Crisis in Education

No, this isn't about public schools, it's about another kind of education entirely — the training of foreign military and police forces by the US military and the CIA.  Even when compared to the success rate of your typical inner-city high school, it's a failure.

How many billions of dollars has the USofA spent "training" the Iraqi army and police forces who promptly abandoned their positions, leaving their US supplied weapons behind, when IS took over Ramadi?  How about the half billion or so spent recruiting, training, and arming Syrian "moderates" — 51 of them by best estimates, of whom roughly five still are in the field?  Then, just last week, American trained forces in Afghanistan abandoned Kirkuz to Taliban invaders, despite outnumbering their enemy and being better armed.  To add insult to injury, military spokespersons have persistently reported glowing success for the training programs, even as graduates turn tail and run away.

Some blame the inadequacy of Iraqi and Afghan officer corps, but it's probably just as well that the USofA can't take responsibility for officer training.  Our Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly called the US Army School of the Americas, has been training Latin American military leaders for many years.  Its graduates are best known for leading military coups against elected governments and some of the worst human rights abuses on record.

So why do we continue to throw good money after bad in the Middle East?  Because "training" seems like a reasonable substitute for boots on the ground.  Given that a reprise of the Bush invasions that got us into the mess in the first place would be understandably unpopular, and that just taking what remains of our marbles and going home is not an option, we seem to be trapped in what economists call the "sunk cost fallacy."  We'll continue to invest more and more into a losing proposition.

Torture report

Reading the "letters" sections in the newspapers, you will discover that many people believe that revealing CIA torture of prisoners will lead to "retribution" against Americans.  Their thinking, to me, at least, is pretty strange.

Back in 1969 and 1970, the USofA authorized the "secret bombing" of Cambodia.  Does anybody  actually think the Cambodians didn't notice?  Only Americans and our allies were kept in the dark.

Early in 2011, hundreds of Taliban prisoners escaped from a prison in Kandahar Province.  Then, in 2013, Al Qaeda freed hundreds more from Abu Ghrab, in Iraq.  Does anybody think none of those prisoners were tortured?  In Afghanistan and Iraq, torture is no big news.

The people who had to be slapped in the face with the news — not just waterboarding, but torture by goddamned enema, don't live in the Middle East, they live here, in the USofA.

And a bunch of them have been elected to Congress.

Annus horribilis: part one

I don't want to read the newspaper, lately.  Nevertheless, let's look at some disparate pieces.

Afghanistan

Yes, of course the ballot boxes were stuffed.  Maliki did it in 2010, and he's done it again, now.  For some not especially obscure reasons, the USofA encouraged Maliki to get away with it in 2010.  That, some of us now can see, was a big mistake.

Iraq

The creation of a parliamentary system, rather than a typically authoritarian Middle Eastern presidential system, might be a step in the right direction.  Just the same, expect an independent Kurdistan, and good luck to them.

Probably there is too much billionaire opposition to the "Islamic State" for it to make substantial headway in the near or not so near future, but who knows?  One dreadful shithead.  Another dreadful shithead.  Go figure.

Gaza

Since, according to Israeli authorities, no Israelis actually have died from the Palestinian rocket attacks, and close on two hundred Gaza civilians have died in Israeli air strikes, it seems like somebody might be overreacting.

Israel attributes the missile attacks to Hamas, but provides no proof.  Islamic Jihad seems a more likely suspect, but the potential reconciliation of Hamas and the PLO is a greater threat to Israel's apartheid state.

.....

There will be more to come; and soon, I hope.  I will do my best to smack myself out of this sad, soporific suspension of distaste and remind myself that, even if I am likely to die before any of this is resolved, I still can try to provide my particular prospectus.

I like it.  Do you?

Odds and Ends

McCutcheon

Personally, I couldn't care less how many $5200 contributions fat cats pass around to Congressional candidates.  $5200 is chump change, and I'd rather see it publicly donated than filtered anonymously through a  501(c)(4).

Affirmative Action

Also, I couldn't care less whether or not the Obama children or the grandchildren of Stanley O'Neal get preference for college admission.  Let the top schools tap their endowments and bring in students, of whatever race, who never could afford to attend a top school otherwise.  The poor will be overrepresented by blacks and Latinos, but if the Ivy League can pull in some unemployed West Virginia miner's kids, that's great.

Iraq and Afghanistan

Elections do not mean a country is democratic.  In classically corrupt Iraq and Afghanistan, it's pretty obvious.  In the United States, it's less obvious, but just as true.

Asshole of the month for November

Well, I was leaning towards Chuck Schumer for his total subservience to AIPAC, and faxed him (remember fax?) to tell him as much, but it is a big world, and Schumer (who is objecting to possible detente with Iran) was outdone.

The winner! : Hamid Karzai, of course.  Somebody on the radio suggested he was "off his meds."  Was he ever on his meds?  Do they even make meds for somebody so totally nuts?

First he called the loya jurga, totally stacked to support him, and then he ignored the loya jurga's demand that he sign the agreement with the USofA immediately.  (I guess those loya jurga guys understand that two billion bucks a year in military aid is not chump change.)  Now Hamid wants to put off signing until April, after the election of a new asshole, who is likely to be one of his brothers or cousins, given the endemic corruption.

Personally, I'd be happy to keep the two billion and tell Karzai to screw himself.  Al Qaeda is comfortably ensconced all over North Africa and the Arabian peninsula, so Afghanistan will hardly make a difference.

Some Brief Thoughts

Haiyan

What can you do but cry and send money?  I sent an extra hundred bucks to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), because I've vetted them, and know they're efficient and low overhead.  With corpses rotting on the streets and little safe water, the need for medical care only can increase.  Be careful about who gets your money.  When CEOs of charities are paid like CEOs of megabanks, find another place to contribute.

$142 million?

Mind you, I like Francis Bacon's tryptych of Julian Freud, albeit I would be unlikely to hang a print in my living room — but the price indicates only that some people just have too much goddamned money.

Record Afghan Opium Crop

I don't know how many recall this, but the lowest opium production by Afghanistan was in the last year of Taliban control.  The Taliban had moral problems with opium, and the total output was zero.  Now, we're told, they're profiting from the trade.  So much for morality.

Syria

What can you do but cry and send money?  Sadly, the people sending money live in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and they're sending it to Al Nusra and other Al Qaeda linked groups.  With allies like that, who needs enemies?

Assorted Stuff for October

That Unfortunate Website

Well, the federal ACA website has bombed big-time.  The O is taking the heat, but we should remember he's not personally responsible for everything.  On the other hand, his people did sign the contracts with the private sector contractors who screwed it all up.

Unfortunately, we no longer are allowed to create federal agencies to take care of such major efforts.  We have to divvy up the money to be made on such projects among private sector contractors, probably because the public sector doesn't have enough lobbyists.

Holderman v. Dimon

It appears that J.P.Morgan-Chase will be paying 13 billion bucks to resolve most of its liabilities from the mortgage crisis.  Maybe it's not entirely fair, because Dimon's bank didn't own WaMu or Morgan-Stanley when they racked up lots of the losses.

What the hell.  J.P.Morgan-Chase picked up WaMu and Morgan-Stanley at bargain basement prices.  Dimon didn't have to be goosed along too hard, and at the moment, it seems that his farts still don't stink.

The whole thing is making Holderman look better than usual — to wit, he's doing something other than chasing down leakers.  Is 13 billion enough?  Who knows?

Afghanistan

As in Iraq, we're having problems leaving troops behind after the scheduled "withdrawal," because we want our troops to be immune from local and national law.  Murder?  Rape?  Really, we'd rather try them back home.

Personally, I don't see the problem.  Afghanistan is so corrupt, it should be fairly inexpensive to bail the naughty boys out of their trouble, not that I necessarily approve.  On the other hand, some Special Forces asshole could wind up being a political asset for whoever happens to replace Karzai.

If we don't leave any troops behind, it is quite likely that Congress will decide to stop financing the Afghan military.  That's okay by me.  They hate us and our imperialism pretty much all over the world, so Afghanistan should not be especially "special."

Karzai, stoned

A rather large portrait of Hamid Karzai, affixed to a wall in some dusty town in Kumar province, Afghanistan, was the target of a few stones thrown by an American soldier.  The portrait was large enough so that the stone thrower could not have missed, according to the New York Times.  Local officials, who heard of the stone throwing, were upset.

Karzai is thoroughly corrupt, and my guess is that the local officials who complained about the stone throwing are as well.  It is fitting, I suppose, that we are leaving behind a kleptocracy in Afghanistan, shaped in our own image, but with a bit less subtlety.  I sincerely hope the stone throwing soldier is on his way back home now, and never again will have to participate in "training" the Afghan "police" in methods of suppressing popular anger against their president.

If our government gives that soldier a hard time for exercising a little free speech, then we are no better than Afghanistan — or China, or Russia.  Barack Obama has not been, exactly, the civil liberties president.

There is a movement in the British Labour Party to get back to its socialist roots.  Wouldn't it be nice if there were a movement in our own Democratic party to get back to its liberal roots?

(I guess the real liberals just don't have enough money.)

Helpless, helpless

The United States has, by far, the largest military establishment in the world.  Our expenditures are roughly equal to the next fourteen world powers combined.  China and Russia, together, spend only 30% of what we spend.

That level of expenditure might be justified if our military actually accomplished anything, but it really hasn't been good for much lately.  Some may argue that "lately" goes back half a century or so, but let's start by looking a lot more "lately" than that.

Not even factoring in all the lost lives, and the contributions they might have made to our society, Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to add up to $4 trillion — when you add in the costs of caring for the injured and disabled, and the interest on the debt we accrued to fight in those countries.  Hell, we're still paying the social and psychological costs of Vietnam — and we lost that one too.

Yes, that's what I said.  We lost.

Iraq's Shi'a government — thoroughly corrupt, aggressively purging Sunnis, hostile towards the Kurds, and not even remotely recognizable as democratic — looks like a good bet to become Iran's closest ally.  Afghanistan, as any student of history might have predicted, will return to it's natural condition of tribal-warlord-dominated-failed-state-locked-in-perpetual-civil-war.  Nobody even can guess what will transpire in Pakistan, but it doesn't look too hopeful for the USofA.  Great job, America!

Then there's Syria — not to mention Libya, Egypt, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and an host of other severely challenged not-quite-states — places where even the most ambitious American generals fear to tread.  And, no, we can't get away with invading Venezuela or Bolivia or Peru, and our military is useless against provocations by Russia or China (despite our commitments to Japan, Georgia, and the Philippines.)  What good is a huge, bloated military if you can't even use it?

(Okay, Clinton managed to get the Balkans back to where they were, more or less, before World War I — but, as you may recall, that "balkanized" region was where World War I started.  All Obama does is launch drone attacks, which is kind of like using laser beams against the flies buzzing around those starving babies' eyes.)

Does global capitalism need a powerful army to protect its interests around the world?  It seems to think it does — but why in hell should you and I pay for it?  Let global capitalism hire Eric Prince and whatever he's calling Blackwater these days — and pay for the protection, extortion, and intimidation without putting it's grasping tentacles in our pockets.


Oh — and, yeah...  Happy New Year.

The Petraeus Fiasco

Hey! Remember when MoveOn.org drew so much flak for calling General Petreaus "General Betray-us?"  Well, guess what?  They got that one right.

I rapidly departed MoveOn when they moved from Kucinich (our favorite) to Obama without even consulting the  so-called membership.  I was of the opinion that either Edwards or Clinton would have been a better choice, and I still think I was right.  Nevertheless, MoveOn was dead right about Petraeus.

Personally, I don't care who he was screwing, then or now — albeit, I understand that Obama felt obliged to offer his tender virgin hole to the Great General by approving the"surge" because he thought that he had to; and Obama gave Petraeus the CIA post last year because it was the only way to get him out of the Army, where he worked against the president (approximately) 96.7% of the time, and kept us in Afghanistan years longer than made any sense.

I'm very glad the scrawny but "fit" little shit is getting what he deserves, and I hope his chubby wife, despite her lack of "toned" arms and fetching(?) armpits, gets his entire military pension when she divorces him.  Also, I hope that the multinational that hires him goes broke.  (Yes, I'm a little vindictive, but we're talking about thousands of dead American soldiers here.)

Anyway, Maureen Dowd got it totally right today in her Times column, the first analysis of the "scandal" that makes any sense at all.  Read it.

The Kandahar Massacre

A 38-year-old Army sergeant and a father of two (according to sources for the New York Times) left his base in Kandahar, kicked down the doors of a bunch of people who lived about a mile from the base, and killed sixteen of them. Most were children.

Afghanistan's vox populi doubts the "lone gunman" theory, but most likely it was one guy driven batshit crazy by his service — three tours in Iraq, and a final tour in Afghanistan. Needless to say, he had to be batshit crazy, but that little factoid should not be allowed to invoke any no-fault insurance policies. The blame should fall exactly where it belongs — on the United States military. Only the military had the opportunity to drive him batshit crazy, and only the military had the responsibility to notice he was nuts.

Except for a few psychopaths, who rise rapidly either to the middle ranks of the military or the upper echelons of government, even young men have inhibitions about killing. One of the inevitable objectives of military training must be dehumanizing "the enemy." It's a damned shame that the only options available to basic training personnel consist of either teaching the gung-ho youth sophisticated and nuanced ways to discriminate between "the enemy" and potential friends, or just teaching them to hate all "towelheads"

We all know which approach they take — the easy one.

The video of American soldiers pissing on the corpses of dead Afghans (who may or may not have been Taliban — it doesn't matter), and the "accidental" burning of a stack of Korans at Bagram should have provided ample proof that whatever the US military is doing to train its troops is inadequate at best, more likely counterproductive or, at worst, suicidal. The Kandahar murders just put the cherry on top.

Considering that the main thing we've been doing in Afghanistan for too, too many years has been propping up the corrupt Karzai government, I suggest it's time to tell America's ignorant masses we won, and just get the fuck out. (As a matter of fact, I think that's exactly what Obama plans to do. I wish him luck.)

"Withdrawal" symptoms

Well, the president finally has decided what to do regarding Afghanistan and, to nobody's surprise, it seems to be another of his bloody "compromises." Announced as an "acceleration" of troop withdrawal, by the end of next year it still will leave more than twice as many troops in Afghanistan as there were before the "surge."

The military, needless to say, really didn't want any troop withdrawal at all. First, as long as we're over there killing Taliban (and any civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time), we can deny that we've lost the war. I imagine there are those who hate to think the 1500 American troops killed in action haven't "died in vain" — although, of course, they have died in vain, and the thousands more with severe combat related disabilities have been disabled in vain. Another factor important to the careerists is that combat is where the promotions are to be found, and a less bellicose United States would hinder their advancement.

As for Obama, I suppose it's not politically expedient to call it quits before the next election, considering all the bug-eyed, meat-rending Republicans who would call him both a sissy and a betrayer of American values — and also considering what a big deal he made in the last election about how Afghanistan was the right war to fight. On the other hand, perhaps he should pay more attention to the growing number of Republicans joining the Democratic left in demanding immediate withdrawal — mostly for fiscal reasons, but for other reasons as well. "If we're going to leave," said Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), "we should leave. The centralized system of government foisted upon the Afghan people is not going to hold after we leave. So let's quit prolonging the agony and the inevitable."

Hear hear!

Very interesting...

No sooner did I post my wish for the demilitarization of David Petraeus than the Obama administration stepped up to grant it. Even though nobody in the punditocracy is interpreting the general's move to the CIA in the light I presented it a few days ago — they honestly couldn't now, could they? — I'm hoping the groundwork is set for a more efficient withdrawal from Afghanistan than we've been led to expect.

A new military assessment claims that seven — count 'em, seven — provinces now can be taken over "successfully" by the Afghan military. Our military drawdown is scheduled to start this summer, shortly after the US leadership shuffle takes place, and it may be that more provinces will be added to the list by then — no matter what actually is happening on the ground. In addition to the Petraeus transfer, the rest of the shuffle looks promising as well.

Robert Gates did a fine job of de-escalating the craziness of Donald Rumsfeld, and I sincerely wish him a pleasant retirement. I think he probably has the grace to keep his face off the cable news networks and spend his time enjoying golf or gardening or grandchildren or whatever. Leon Panetta should be a fine replacement — politically astute, low key, and not seeking further advancement. He should do quite well deflecting criticism from Congressional hawks as he explains how we actually "won" the longest war in our history.

Scarcely anybody outside top military brass seem to know anything about Lt. General John Allen, and one only can hope it stays that way. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to revel in press conferences, so he's probably a fine choice to take the lead in Afghanistan. It's time for the civilian leaders to reassert power over the military, and Allen is unlikely to stand in the way.

As for Petraeus, he can have the pleasure of continuing to piss off the ISI by lobbing drone-borne bombs at Haqqani network bases in Pakistan. He and the Haqqanis deserve each other, and Predator strikes are about all the CIA is (moderately) good at these days. As an intelligence gathering agency, they've been pretty useless for the past decade or so. (I wonder what the CIA assessment of Gadaffi's ability to hang on in Libya looked like.)

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan...

Afghanistan finally made it back into the news today, and all it took was the escape of nearly five hundred Taliban fighters from the Kandahar prison. Kandahar, you'll recall, is that "former" Taliban stronghold where US troops and their Afghan allies have been doing so "well" lately.

A photograph in the New York Times shows a hole about three feet across, through which the nearly five hundred men escaped Monday night. Even if nobody happened to notice five months of construction to build the tunnel — complete with electric lighting and air vents — one wonders how so many prisoners managed to queue up and disappear down the rabbit hole without a guard or two wondering what was going on. Apparently all the Taliban fighters were held in some common area, not locked in individual cells. It seems, to me, at least, a very odd way to imprison presumably dangerous men.

Afghanistan, of course, is monumentally corrupt — and corruption certainly must have played a role in the great escape, just as it plays a role in everything else that has to do with US support for the Karzai government. For some reason, though, US officials, both military and diplomatic, refuse to accept that if you can't trust your "allies" — the people for whom you are spilling lots of blood and spending vast amounts of money — there is no chance of "victory."

Since the start of the Obama "surge," death rates for NATO troops and Afghan civilians have spiked. Parts of the country occupied at great cost suddenly lose their "strategic importance," and are abandoned to the Taliban as the troops that took them are withdrawn to fight in some new, "strategically important" area. Most Americans, tired of hearing more of the same news from Afghanistan over and over, have tuned out — but if you ask them, most say we should just pull out of the country and let the Afghans sort things out for themselves.

What keeps a poll-driven administration from recognizing the will of the people, declaring victory, and just getting the hell out?

One factor, of course, is the political power of the military contractors who are making fortunes producing all the crap we are flushing down the Afghan toilet. The other is General David Petreaus.

Petraeus has cleverly positioned himself as the heroic military genius who may never be criticized. Whatever his alleged skill in the field of anti-insurgency, his talent for self-promotion and public relations is unsurpassed. Whenever there is any sign of movement to end our involvement in Afghanistan, Petreaus takes to the media to tell us all how, thanks to his personal genius, victory is just around the corner.

Obama can't control him, so it seems the only way to get the US out of Afghanistan is to get Petreaus out first. An opportunity to do so may arise when the CIA Director's position falls vacant, giving the president an opportunity to "promote" the thorn in his side straight out of the military. I'm sure the general's anti-insurgency "expertise" will be just as "useful" at the spy agency as it has been on the battlefield.

Then, just maybe, command of the war in Afghanistan can be put in the hands of somebody willing to bring the troops home.

Afghanistan, again

Now that the US has been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Union was — which also makes our fumbling around there the longest war in our history — it seems like a good time for a review of what's going on over there. The Obama administration is planning to release a "December Review" shortly, but we already know what it's going to say. According to Petraeus and crew, we'll be "making good progress" — military leaders just hate losing wars, possibly more than even presidents do.

On the ground, though, all we're doing is propping up a corrupt government, lining the pockets of warlords and military contractors, and creating a great deal of misery at very great expense. We already know that whatever remains of the original Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden included, is in Pakistan — probably guests of the Haqqani Network, under the protection of Pakistan's ISI. Yes, it's a shame that so many lives had to be lost so that a pack of rich, sleazy bastards could get even richer, but that's what happened, and throwing more lives and money at an impossible situation won't bring any of them back.

Some are concerned that the Iranians will go into Afghanistan if the US pulls out "too soon." If they do, it will be a damned shame for Iran. Afghanistan is not called "the graveyard of empires" for nothing.

Lesson for Today

Military leaders in the field should not go drinking with reporters from Rolling Stone, much less bring their asshole aides along to the party.

In the meanwhile, on the ground, the casualties keep mounting, the Karzai family continues to enrich itself at the expense of the American taxpayer, and Al Qaeda is blithely training its operatives in Yemen, Somalia, and probably other places around the world that most Americans never knew existed.

We can't police the world anymore — we can't afford it, and it just doesn't work.

Meanwhile, back in Marja...

Last February, I grudgingly allowed that General McChrystal should get his chance at pacifying Marja. Well, he's had his chance. Before we escalate even further and move on to Kandahar, maybe it would be a good idea to see how Marja turned out.

The Taliban actually left for a while, but now they're back. The Afghan national police push the locals around during the day, and the Taliban do it by night. Oh, and remember that "government in a box" that was all ready to move in as soon as Marja was reclaimed? It seems the box must have leaked, because a good many of the officials never made it to Marja — they're still back in Kabul, although they are collecting their government salaries for doing such good work down south.

So the schedule for Kandahar has been pushed back a bit. I suppose there's no need for a "government in a box" there, because Ahmed Wali Karzai will continue to run the place just as he always has.

Making things even more interesting, U.S. geologists estimate close to a trillion dollars in mineral wealth is just waiting to be dug up in Afghanistan. Just think of all the splendid corruption that will bring. Hell, we couldn't even keep rampant corruption out of our own Minerals Management Service — and I really don't see a pack of Karzai cousins taking too much trouble to preserve the environment when the mining begins.

Well, at least they don't have an ocean to pollute.