Let's compare what those hapless, brutal Russians did with what "our" glorious, humanitarian troops have accomplished:
- The Russians established a frail, corrupt puppet government in Kabul and made deadly enemies of every other living Afghani they weren't directly paying off.
- The Americans, by brilliant contrast, have done all that and also pissed off the Pakistanis and the Iranians, and that without even one rival superpower selling SAMs to the insurgents! Yay us!
Any bets that American troops will beat the Russians' longevity record? Given that Obama and the generals just escalated, it seems likely to me.
1 comment:
Nicely put, Joel. When it first became evident that the US was going to occupy Afghanistan - both the recent Soviet occupation came to mind - and that phrase - "the graveyard of empires".
Appropriately - a Frontline piece on Afghani resistance was aired last night. With the recollection of this blog entry fresh in my mind - I found the following amusing.
Basically - a resistance fighter spoke to the camera and said - "the Soviets had 3* states - and now see where they are. The US has 5* states, and we'll do the same to them!" (I'm not sure of the #s he used - I think he said 34 for the Sovs, and 52 for the US...)
The whole Afghani business is such an enormous kettle of fish - from so many angles - and folks in the US seem to have such a short memory and attention span for even the most basic evaluation.
Like the recent news about the amounts of $ flowing from Afghanistan to Dubai. Since when would/should this be of interest to those in the US - except that many people in the US may feel they have some vested interest in this - having watched their government pour so many of their tax dollars into it in the last several years. More disturbing to me is the thought that so many people would consider this nosiness about cash flow to be appropriate in the first place. Cannibal Pot thinking - I guess...
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