World Fail 101
Intractable international problems continually and increasingly reveal how ineffective— and unethical— it is for any single nation, like the United States, to assume the mantle of “World Sheriff.”
Tag: Pakistan
Afutilestan X
Hostile occupation is like a coiled spring– the greater the force applied, the greater the force generated when the spring is finally sprung. For instance, triple the amount of occupation forces in Afghanistan, as President Obama has done and voila!– a proportional number of new resistance forces are added to the equation. That’s just the nature of the beast. People …
Afutilestan IX (Update)
US taxpayers funding the killing of its own troops [Note: The arguments of my previous eight Afutilestan diaries explaining why the continuing and escalating presence of US troops in Afghanistan is doomed to fail are incorporated herein.] So what’s new since my last quagmire update? Last night the House approved another $30 billion in military spending in Afghanistan, on top …
Afutilestan (VII): The Great Game Revisited
Geography is destiny, Napoleon is reported to have said. I began to appreciate that political truism early on, thanks to marathon games of Risk I played as a kid. According to Wikipedia, Risk was originally released in France in 1957, as La Conquête du Monde—The Conquest of the World. It was likely modeled on the period of history that historians …
Afutilestan (VI): Obama’s Decision
Back to the future in Afghanistan Irony often has the most exquisite timing. Today President Obama announces a massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan, doubling the number of troops that Bush left behind. And next week he travels to Oslo to pick up his Nobel War Peace Prize. So, what did those three months of careful deliberation net us? …
Afutilestan (III)
As President Obama continues his deliberations about what the hell to do about Afghanistan, this week saw a lot of fuel thrown on the fire: The number of US troops killed by the Taliban hit an all time monthly high. The Taliban showed they could strike anywhere, killing a dozen UN workers in their Kabul headquarters and shelling a five …
Afutilestan
The contents of General McCrystal’s top-down review of Afghanistan ordered by President Obama found its way into the front pages of the NY Times and Washington Post today. As expected, it paints a grim picture and calls for more of everything– more troops, more money, more nation building– on top of the $ 4 billion a month we’re already spending …
