Monday, June 28, 2010

30 Billion Dollar Question

Congress will be asked this week to okay ANOTHER 30 BILLION for the Afghan war. That makes me feel a lot better about not getting that extension to my UI benefits. I'd hate to think I was taking money from some homicidal Blackwater goon or from one of Karzai's criminal relatives.

Here's the question I've never heard asked: Why do the legendary warriors of Afghanistan need our assistance to whip the Taliban? Afghanistan, "The Graveyard of Empires," is the only Middle Eastern country never conquered by a foreign power. It's the only country where Alexander wasn't so Great. Afghans drove out England when the British Empire was at its height. They are the only country to stop Genghis Khan. The Soviet Union, with all its modern weaponry, tried in vain for 14 years to subdue the Afghans.

So why does the Afghan Army need help to defeat a motley gang of ill-equipped, ill-trained insurgents armed with antique rifles and crude, improvised bombs?

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