afghan redux

"Oh I'm sick of hearing about Iraq!" replied the peevish infant Dubya to his many critics. "What about Afghanistan, huh? Huh? What about THAT! Now THAT was a victory, ya gotta admit!"

From today's NY Times: "The steady stream of violence has dealt a new blow to this still traumatized nation of 25 million. In dozens of interviews conducted in recent weeks around the country, Afghans voiced concern that things were not improving, and that the Taliban and other dangerous players were gaining strength."

Dubya: "OH SHADDUP!"

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Twenty-seven years ago, when Jimmy Carter reinstituted draft registration in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I made the decision not to register, fully expecting that my eighteen-year-old ass would wind up in jail as a result. Now there's rumor of reinstitution of the draft, this to supply the necessary cannon fod . . . er, manpower for our present and prospective imperial invasions / occupations, including our occupation of Afghanistan. There is an irony at work here, one almost too sickening to nail down.

What of the "defeated" Taliban? "'We were wrong,' a senior Afghan government official acknowledged, saying of the Taliban, 'It seems they were spending the time preparing.'" (NY Times)

Shades here of that pesky mujahadeen of old. Those freedom fighters we supported and so admired . . . for a time.