The "good," the bad and the ugly

There is almost no discussion of the NY Times article, How the 'Good War' in Afghanistan went Bad, on the growing debacle in Afghanistan and how it got to be that way. The biggest reason for that is likely scandal fatigue; pure and utter burnout about a failing war made that way by ideologues without conscience. In other words, a very familiar tale. In fact, there is far more yakking about the Iowa straw poll than about than Bush's failed wars and the way they got that way. Which itself is also a tired and familiar tale.

Ignoring for the moment, the complete lack of necessity of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan -- the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden -- the story is a very good account of how the Bush administration screwed up the Afghanistan occupation. It is, in fact, an eerily similar account to the disastrous decisions documented in No End in Sight, about the US post-invasion occupation of Iraq. The problem with the story is that it is simply not surprising anymore. Hell, it isn't even really news, despite some interesting details. Nonetheless, it should be read, if for no other reason than to simply apprise oneself of this particular litany of ideological idiocy wherein, once again, reason and knowledge lost out to fealty to a blinkered and uninformed belief and a much broader agenda.