We, the "civilized" residents of the West, clinging to our bill of rights and respect for "diversity", cannot understand how the Taliban thrives. Yet it does. Millions in south and central asia cling to the certainty of authoritarian Islam. Escapes like this just don't happen. Underground resistance requires some popular and widespread support. The history of European resistance against German occupation during WWII is an analogy that would not occur to the historically limited Obama and his poll-driven advisors. Many Afghans want the American occupier out, even if they don't love the Taliban. Vietnam's lessons are lost on Obama. And we're spending two billion a week in another money and life-losing war. And our defeat is all but certain. The military leadership in the Pentagon is cowardly and craven. The political leadership in this and the last White House not less so.

What are we doing in Afghanistan? We are giving the Taliban bribes which are turned against us because we are too stupid to understand the culture. We are hapless dupes. It's pathetic. It's a waste of lives and money.

This is the perfect illustration of the futility of it all.

There may be good news here. If Taliban devoted months of the time of their guys on such a massive works project, they may be very hard up for willing fighters.

Should we called this episode A Greater Escape?


Recently I asked a young acquaintance who is planning to enlist as to why he was intending to take this step and his answer was that the United States was under attack and needed defending, and that the people in Afghanistan were clamoring for our help against the Taliban. When pressed for details, it came out that he believes the Taliban and AlQuaeda are the same group, have invaded Afghanistan, and if not defeated will launch an attack on the US and the rest of the civilized world. The Taliban/AlQuaeda, he believes, hate us because we are Christians, but when we prevail in the end they will understand ours is the true religion, will be converted, and peace will prevail in the world. It came out that he was vague on details such as: location of Afghanistan (somewhere near Israel), the Soviets in Afghanistan (never heard of that), Pakistan (also in danger of being taken over by Muslins), Iran (I never heard of Persians, all of those people are Arabs), and just for my own amusement, ever heard of Alexander The Great? (Who?). This young person lives in a high income area, his parents are college graduates and he is graduating for what passes as an excellent school, and although this is Texas, a good portion of the local population in this area is from other states and other countries, moat of those in the executive category.


The US is mired in ignorance and self denial, in so many fronts and all the way to the top. Some of the blame rests on the main stream media. A recent editorial by the Times on the use of cluster bombs is an excellent example, decrying the use, and ignoring the role of our own country on this issue. Who can blame the Joe on the street for his ignorance when the dissiminators of information cannot, or choose not to, get their facts straight. That is,if Joe was reading this newspaper at all, a rare habit these days, made rarer now of course, since it is no longer free.

It was less than twenty years ago in this very paper, that we spent so much time reading about how the Afghan occupation was wearing the Soviet Empire down, bringing it to it knees, draining the coffers for real, etc...

So, we are 9 years in Afghanistan supposedly to extract AlQuaeda and we cannot even guard a prison? When will our politicians learn that we should not be in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. We are simply not capable of handling these tasks. How about spending the money we waste there for nothing in America?

The ability to parade almost 500 captives through a tunnel and then drive them away makes the security arrangements at that Afghan prison less than that of a typical barnyard. One suspects there are now-rich guards and a more-rich warden involved. This would be hilarious, except the joke is on us. We need an ally like Afghanistan like Japan needs another tsunami. If Obama and his cadre can't see that, we need people in charge who can.