Strawberry Fields Forever

Hey how am I driving, man?
I think we're parked
--Cheech and Chong, Up in Smoke (1978)

I want the truth.
You can't handle the truth.
--A Few Good Men (1992)

Let's go on with the show!
--There's No Business, Like Show Business lyrics

Occasionally the Wall Street Journal runs a very lucid editorial piece. Such is the case with, "An Afghan Policy Built on Pipe Dreams."

It explains how everybody's baby--the Good War--Afghanistan, is as much a fiction as anything else in this Middle East voyaging. The title is a double entendre, referring both to the illusory nature of victory and the opium-induced hallucinations which the national award-winning poppy crop will buy you.

Perhaps even a triple entendre, if you factor in the probable commensurate experiences enjoyed by a young GWB at the end of a pipe or bong. (This is one vice Vice Cheney might not have partaken in. I imagine he'd look just a bit happier if it were so. Then again, the scowl could just betoken some late stage burnout, a la Timothy Leary, and he's feeling like Tiny Tim underneath it all.)

The author details the way that words lead to false conclusions and faulty national policy. Examples given include such fallacies as, "Afghans are willing partners in the creation of a liberal democratic state," and are part of “the group of people who want to live in peace and harmony with each other, whatever your race or your background or your religion.”

Not bloody likely. It is reminiscent of the RVN policy explored by Robert McNamara in "The Fog of War."

The article continues:

It is not only politicians who misrepresent the facts. Nonprofit groups endorse the fashionable jargon of state-building and civil society, partly to win grants. Military officers are reluctant to admit their mission is impossible. . . No one wants to seem to endorse a status quo dominated by the Taliban and drugs. Humankind cannot bear very much reality, particularly in Afghanistan.

Nothing is what it seems and all is spin. The U.S. talks of democracy and Afghans support Sharia law, which is most definitely not founded upon enlightened democratic principles.

As Ranger consistently argues, both Iraq and Afghanistan are shell games being played by a corrupt, self-absorbed and crony-dominated U.S. national leadership.

The security and defense of America will not be resolved in Iraq or Afghanistan. Fighting local religious wars is counter-productive to the security of America.

Jim and Lisa