The first and only legitimately targeted nation in the “war” on “terror” is sliding deeper into turmoil even as Cheney blats more partei slogans.
The “liberal” media is once more pointing out some problems with the Bush camp’s handling of … of reality. The state of affairs in Afghanistan has been steadily declining for a while now; MSNBC, the Washington Post and doubtless a few other sources are reporting a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that took place over the weekend — at a funeral for a governor there who had been killed by a suicide bomber.
The governor, Hakim Taniwal, was apparently quite popular and well liked. He was killed on Sunday when
[T]he bomber threw himself under their vehicle and detonated the explosives as they were approaching the governor’s office in the provincial capital, Gardez, about 80 miles south of Kabul.
The following day, at his funeral,
A suicide bomber struck […], and four senior members of the government at the service escaped unhurt, officials and witnesses said. At least six people were killed and dozens were wounded.
Meanwhile, we’re learning that things in Afghanistan are falling apart faster than anyone expected. The WA Post had another piece on life there in general, passing along this information:
“Life is hard, but it is peaceful, and that is what matters most,” said [Mahmad] Naib, 55, a mason who was shoveling debris Thursday out of the newly plastered mosque.
That was just a couple of days before the attack in Kabul that killed Taniwal. And ironically the “war” on “terror” seems to be dovetailing into the “war” on “drugs” as well:
At the same time, opium poppy cultivation, virtually wiped out by the Taliban, has soared to record levels, largely in the south. Nationwide it increased by 59 percent in the past year alone, according to new U.N. figures. Drug traffickers have formed protective alliances with the Islamic insurgents.
Yeah. Not only did we pound the hell out of Afghanistan and then abandon it; we seem to have eliminated the one force in the country that stopped drug production (but, of course, murdered women and children; but then, you expect a few casualties in any war, even the one on drugs … ’cause fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice … uh … cain’t get fooled again) … after which the drug production stepped up and is now partially in the hands of the very “tur’rists” Bushie boy claims to want defeated.
So … let’s see. Currently we’re 0 for 2 in handling nations that are, or were, actual or alleged threats to the US. We’ve done nothing real to help in Iraq — things there are much worse than before we invaded, and the US is definitely not “safer” from “tur’rism”. Nor, I should add, is the rest of the world.
As for Afghanistan, the once-ousted Taliban is on the rise there again. The Taliban hosted the Qaeda back in the days before WTC. You think they’ll be revisiting old friends?
Furthermore, the LA Times has reminded us (oh, and the “tur’rists”, of course; you can be sure accusations against the Times will surface from the less-hinged among us) that most of the commercial harbors in Los Angeles are still not safe, despite the vast volumes of money swallowed whole by the Depatment of Vaterland Homeland Security.
“In terms of maritime security, have people done things? Yes,” said retired Coast Guard Cmdr. Stephen E. Flynn, a consultant and expert on port security. “But are we keeping pace with terrorists’ capabilities and the potential consequences five years after 9/11? The answer is no.”
The problem is the big old metal boxes that are stuffed full of goodies to fill the aisles at Wal-Mart.
A key vulnerability, Flynn and others say, remains the ubiquitous cargo container, the mainstay of international commerce and a potential Trojan horse in the age of terrorism.
I wonder how long it’ll be before port security is again handed over to a Dubai-owned company, and just why the Fed isn’t taking care of it instead?
Oh yeah. Katrina.
Of course all of this — my writing it, your reading it, and the news media’s reporting it — is giving aid to the “tur’rists”, according to US veep Dick “Dick” Cheney. Both MSNBC and the WA Post again got this one [emphasis mine].
The vice president said U.S. allies in Afghanistan and Iraq “have doubts” the United States will finish the job there. “And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we’ve had in the United States,” he said. “Suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq simply feed into that whole notion, validates the strategy of the terrorists.”
Right. By discussing possible resolutions to the Iraq quagmire, we’re letting the “tur’rists” win. I guess we know where Rummy gets his ideas.
Dick kept at it on his interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press. He refuses to fess the lie,
[S]aying the administration would have done “exactly the same thing” even if it knew before the war what he acknowledged knowing now — that Iraq did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
And he refuses to acknowledge obvious reality, again pushing the partei drivel that
The United States must stay the course, however, because while the situation is “difficult,” it is significantly better, he said.
And, naturally, he hits the fear button as hard as he can.
He said the threat that drives administration thinking is “the possibility of a cell of al-Qaeda in the midst of one of our own cities with a nuclear weapon, or a biological agent. In that case, you’d be dealing — for example, if on 9/11 they’d had a nuke instead of an airplane, you’d have been looking at a casualty toll that would rival all the deaths in all the wars fought by Americans in 230 years.”
Yet, bafflingly, he’s willing to let Los Angeles’s ports go unguarded.
Isn’t it great that Bush and Company are so dedicated to spreading love for American-style democracy in the Middle East?
Now if only they’d try letting democracy flourish here.
