When Bad Things Happen to Bad Policies

[Dracos]

Karzai and Cheney: Having a blast in Afghanistan
As symbols go, the detonation of a Taliban suicide bomb practically under the nose of the vice president at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan is pretty powerful.

It matters less whether Dick Cheney was two feet or two miles from the blast outside the main gate of the sprawling base at Bagram, that he was the professed target or that he was not hurt in the attack, which killed at least 14 people and wounded about a dozen more.

What matters is that five and a half years after the U.S. declared war on the international global jihad and invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban is re-emergent and regaining control of parts of the country, while Al Qaeda has rebuilt its power structure and network of training camps just across the border in Pakistan.

I have long believed that Afghanistan is ungovernable, that no amount of money could buy Pakistan’s full cooperation in the War on Terror, that the Taliban would not be easily vanquished and that pushing back against Al Qaeda and its terrorist brethern would be a long and extremely difficult fight.

But because of the diversion of attention, resources and personnel for President Bush’s war in Iraq — that is, the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time — we will never know if the Taliban could have been taken down and Al Qaeda routed.

Full Story:http://www.themoderatevoice.com/