Tag: Afghanistan
-
Biden is unlikely to pay a political price for getting us out of Afghanistan
The images all over the news and social media on Afghanistan are heart wrenching. It was made more so when the predictable happened: a suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS-K, an Afghani ISIS affiliate of sorts, killed thirteen U.S. soldiers and more than a hundred others outside the gates of Kabul’s airport. Everyone seems to be…
-
Iraq and Afghanistan: the folly slowly winds down
The end result will be a gradual deterioration and failure of both endeavors [Iraq and Afghanistan] as casualties and costs go through the roof and as Americans grow tired of a conflict with no clear exit criteria. Eventually we will declare a weak victory and leave, but no one will be fooled: we will have…
-
Review: The Kite Runner (2007)
Occasionally, such as in the movie W., you get an uncomfortably topical movie. The Kite Runner is such a movie because it feels too close to the present. Just this weekend, for example, Afghanistan attempted to hold parliamentary elections with at best mixed results: violence, low turnout and the usual fraud. The Taliban seem busy…
-
Mission Accomplished in Afghanistan
Tuesday in the Afghani city of Kandahar, five cars rigged with explosives detonated simultaneously, killing at least forty-one people and wounding at least 66. This is just one of the most recent and egregious incidents of terrorism in Afghanistan, which has recently seen a significant upturn in violence. In July, American casualties in Afghanistan reached…
-
Wrong Target
Somehow, I could sense that Benazir Bhutto would not survive the year. Maybe subconsciously she had a death wish. Martyrs often live larger in death than they did in life. On October 18th, when the exiled former Pakistani Prime Minister triumphantly returned to Pakistan after years of exile, 145 of her supporters died from targeted…
-
Our Coming Failures in Iraq and Afghanistan
The United States will not prevail in Iraq, and likely won’t prevail in Afghanistan either. Both are noble endeavors to try to remake the world into a saner and more peaceful place, but both efforts are doomed to fail. The underlying reason that we will fail will be our inability to understand the complexity of…
Occam's Razor 