The restoration project

The Hillary gab orgy is going on almost everywhere. Yes, she went to Afghanistan. Oh, my, she said, things are not good there. But before I worry too much about that, I have to announce my candidacy for a presidential election several years away because the race is on for donor cash. That's the real battle in Washington.

Ugh. I really cannot believe the fretting over presidential party candidacies a year before the primaries even begin, which themselves signal another eight grueling months of vapid clap-trap, dirty campaigning, empty attack ads, redneck howling, howling about rednecks, and enough nugatory sound bite bullshit, it'll induce auditory canal fungal infections. American politicians now easily spend vastly more time humping themselves in the never-ending cycle of political promotion than ever actually engaging in the business of good governance.

Which is why we're in the horrific mess as we are now. If George Bush is anything, he is the pinnacle achievement of a political system that rewards a sound-bite campaign at the expense of anything remotely approaching experience, knowledge or understanding of just what government is for. Since he is also the product of the Republican party, itself an organism that not only has no idea what government is for, but actively despises the construct of government except as a taxpayer money-funnel for corporate America, George Bush as president represents the convergence of privileged idiot with the generalize derision Republicans have for the institution of government. In sum, Bush is the GOP's ebullient self-actualization that "government is the problem."

There is an old saying about war:
those who have the nicest uniforms loose.

But I digress. Because what I really wanted to point out is that the US media seems to have finally caught a whiff of what is going on in Afghanistan:

Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration, motivated not only by Islamic fervor but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence on Pakistan’s vulnerable western flank.

More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.

Despite the little too late nature of the story -- this has been reported for months if not years already -- this New York Times article is good summation of the untoward behaviour of the Pakistanis, unlike the ridiculous piece on the Iraqi Oil Law (already previously ravaged).

Which brings us back to George Bush and his terrible performance as president. Here we have a situation in which the US is selling billions in arms and providing funding to Pakistan as an vaunted ally in the War on Terror®, while that same government not only harbours terrorist organisations but actively supplies, trains and encourages them to go out and blow up the Commander-in-chief's very own soldiers. And let's not forget that other charming little item recently in which we learned that the Pentagon has been auctioning off military equipment like F-14 parts and missile components, which are finding their way into Iran and China.

Love it or hate it, no matter what you think of Bush's foreign policy, selling arms to those you have declared to be your enemy or to those you think are your friend but are really helping another enemy, strikes one in only one possible way: sheer and unmitigated lunacy. Or maybe not. Because we can't ever forget that some of the only real friends of the Bush administration are Big Oil and Big Defense. And so far, his policies have been working out quite nicely for them.

Feel free to now return to eyewash about Hillary Clinton.