Jailhouse Rock, Redux

The only way to win a war
is to be as nasty as the enemy
--The Guns of Navarone (1961)
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Something doesn't ring true in reports about the recent jailbreak executed by Taliban in Afghanistan.

Reports indicate a suicide bomber breached the back prison wall. Considering bombs were reported as exploding from within the prison and without, this bit smacks of sensationalism to Ranger. Suicide bombers provide just the kind of crazy image that keeps this Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) stoked.

Why would a Taliban assault leader waste a perfectly able and willing suicide bomber on such an inconsequential explosive breaching entry? A suicide bomber is a terrible thing to waste. Anybody, including the suicide bomber, could have placed an explosive breaching charge against the wall without the need to blow himself up. This was a useless act, if true.

However, if true, this is an ominous sign that anti-coalition forces have a surfeit of potential suicide bombers. This is one intelligence indicator that should be considered by the forces of good in their epic struggle in the Long War against evil. Take home: there's a whole lotta evil going on.

The press reports also failed to emphasize that Afghanistan has its citizens in substandard, inhumane mud-hut prisons. This doesn't seem to affect many people's ironclad contention that "Afghanistan is the good and necessary war." Ranger does not accept this "good and necessary" hogwash.

It seems our country is afflicted with the same black-and-white thinking that clouds George W. Bush's vision; if Iraq is bad/difficult, then Afghanistan is good. In this manichaean world view, Afghanistan had the "better" justification of the two conflicts, so weighed against "miserable," it is slid to the left on the spectrum of actions and therefore becomes "good."

But how can the U.S. support any regime that imprisons its citizens without the benefit of recourse to a legal system? (. . .Uh, oh.) Afghanistan puts people in prison without charge or trial. Many of those incarcerated in the Sarposa prison had been held for over two years without being charged.

The basis of the PWOT © is COIN, which is supposedly aimed at winning hearts and minds. Putting people in prison without trial is simply grabbing them by the balls and hoping their hearts and minds will follow.

Ranger reads anti-Taliban commentary in the European press justifying NATO's involvement in the PWOT, presumably built upon anti-immigration sentiment. The arguments revolve around the assertion that the Taliban is basically evil, nasty and dirty, by Western standards. But, so what?

If this is a problem that concerns civilized nations then those concerned should handle the scenario through the auspices of the United Nations. NATO and the U.S. have no historical, legal or moral mandate to selectively and electively invade countries to impose external standards of conduct.

NATO was formed as a defensive alliance to protect its member states from invasion, but it has recently morphed into an invading entity. NATO has become what it was founded to oppose, and the U.S. proves a poor example in this arena.

This coercion is illegal and fits the definition of a war of aggression. It is still aggression, even if you wrap it in swaddling clothes.