Story of the Day: Going, Going...Gone

Bringing the world ever closer to total chaos one day at a time (new tagline for GWB?), the Bush administration is again benefiting from bad news. The Israeli-Hezbollah conflict has kept the mainstream media's eyes almost solely focused on that region for more than a week now. Meanwhile, new counts showed that over a hundred Iraqi civilians were killed daily during the last two months of widespread sectarian violence (a.k.a. civil war). But violence has become so common there - actually increasing after all the fanfare about taking out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - that, well, it's not really "news" to our mainstream media. And while the Taliban in Afghanistan have not only steadily regrouped but grown deadlier, news from today's Guardian UK tells of a country now on the brink of "anarchy."

The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were "running out of time" if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people.

Corrupt local officials were fuelling the problem and Nato's provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan were sending out conflicting signals, Gen Richards told a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London. "The situation is close to anarchy," he said, referring in particular to what he called "the lack of unity between different agencies".

He described "poorly regulated private security companies" as unethical and "all too ready to discharge firearms". Nato forces in Afghanistan were short of equipment, notably aircraft, but also of medical evacuation systems and life-saving equipment.

Officials said later that France and Turkey had sent troops to Kabul but without any helicopters to support them.

...

The picture Gen Richards painted yesterday contrasted markedly with optimistic comments by ministers when they agreed earlier this month to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan at the request of British commanders there. Many of those will be engineers with the task of appealing to Afghan "hearts and minds" by repairing the infrastructure, including irrigation systems.

Ah, yes, those hearts and minds. This might be a formidable task considering:

Afghanistan is now one of the poorest countries with an economy and infrastructure in ruins.

Not to mention a reinvigorated Taliban with no compunctions about killing civilians.

But, hey, look on the bright side: Condi is just about to try some diplomacy stuff in that Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. You may have heard of it. First, you see, she had to let the initial rumblings of democracy - what others call bombs and shrieking civilians - take hold.

As for Afghanistan, no worries. Resident George solved it long ago:

That's why I said to the Taliban in Afghanistan: Get rid of al Qaeda; see, you're harboring al Qaeda. Remember this is a place where they trained -- al Qaeda trained thousands of people in Afghanistan. And the Taliban, I guess, just didn't believe me. And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free. (Applause.) In other words when you say something as President you better make it clear so everybody understands what you're saying, and you better mean what you say. And I meant what I said. (Applause.)

President George W. Bush
September 27, 2004

If a Democrat presided over this absolute nightmare of a presidency, he would be tarred and feathered and toe-tagged by the mainstream media. Is there any doubt that a Democrat perpetrating even one tenth of this administration's abject failures and brazen felonies would be impeached? Bush's reverse Midas touch and often belligerent mien have no peer in the history of the American presidency.

Nevertheless, our mainstream media still largely treats him with the deference reserved for kings and the patience afforded a slow uncle.

Afghanistan Close to Anarchy, Warns General
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian UK