The Afghan situation has always been less than the Iraq situation in terms of importance since day #1 of the Iraq war. Cutting and running in Afghanistan is entirely acceptable since there really isn’t anything in Afghanistan for us anyways.

But Iraq has all that nice oil, and 90% of the freshwater in the region flows through Iraq at some point.

Afghanistan has never been a priority for this administration. Why would that change when things started to go nasty there? Much easier to cut bait and leave a place you don’t really care and have never cared about.

This is interesting. The Journal does not go as far as Drudge in suggesting (indeed, claiming) that Foley is the victim here, but they are nudging up to Drudge: the Journal suggests that there might really be no victims here.

But in today’s politically correct culture, it’s easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/…..=110009033

But here again,like the Catholic Church, the Republicans and the WSJ are trying to link being a pedophile with being gay.

It’s untrue and it’s a disgusting tactic!

But in today’s politically correct culture, it’s easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails. Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for Mr. Hastert’s head are the same voices who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts’ decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where’s Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one?

http://www.opinionjournal.com/…..=110009033

until everyone realizes we can win all the elections in the world, but that these people will stop at nothing to keep total control and a one party state, and that fighting these folks means more than a blog or a donation or a joke, we’re still in deep shit.

time to go to south america…

. . .There has been much less trouble in post-war Afghanistan than in post-war Iraq. This result comes in large part because most Afghans, including a lot of Pushtuns, despised the Taliban. It turns out that the Iraqi Baathist Socialist Party had more grass roots, at least among Sunni Arabs. In contrast, the large Pushtun Taliban were not liked by a lot of Pushtuns. A city like Qandahar was relatively cosmopolitan and chafed under the restrictions of the mostly rural Taliban fighters, with their almost Monty Python puritanism.

But there were districts, tribes, and regions where the Taliban were in fact popular, and these have not gone away. Indeed, over time some of the Taliban (and perhaps other disgruntled local forces) have regrouped.

This minor revival does not matter in most of the country. The Tajiks (who speak a form of Persian) were always die hard opposed to Talibanism, as were the Hazara Shiites for their own reasons. And as for the 10 percent of the population in the north that is Uzbek, well, they massacred thousands of Taliban in Mazar when the unwary seminarians took the city and let their guard down.

So the Taliban revival is a mostly Pushtun phenomenon, affecting places like Hhost and Qandahar, old al-Qaeda stomping grounds. A US base near Khost gets so much enemy fire that it is called Rocket City

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mui @ 200

In fact what I was arguing and probably others is that the Taliban is too hot to bring to the table. …

Hmm. I think part of the problem is that the administration has been using the term “Taliban” in Afghanistan the way they use “terrorists” in Iraq — as a sweeping term to demonize everyone who’s fighting against our forces and the government we support.

I certainly agree that the leaders of the Taliban regime are too hot to be brought into any government. But from what I’ve read, there are plenty of fighters who weren’t active members of the Taliban regime who are now being dubbed “Taliban.” If so, those are people who will need to be drawn into the political system if the fighting is ever to be stopped.

Then let’s start distinguishing dissenting partisans from Fundamentalist Talibanists who helped turned Afganistan into even more abysmally failed state than before. The ones who thought they were the Islamic version of the Red Guard. Taliban is then a very poor word.

Incomprehensible?

I do not think that word means what Condi thinks it means.

You beat me to it. My name is Inigo Montoya…you keeled my father…prepare to DIE!