9\/11 was a really really good reason to go to Afghanistan and wipe out the people who engineered that colossal act of evil. That\u2019s why I never had a proble with the war on the Taliban and al-Quaeda that commenced shortly after. It seemed rather obvious that the mission was \u201cdestroy the people who committed 9\/11\u201d. Short sweet mission statement, nicely in line with Just War. Me not being a pacifist and all, plus being as full of anger about 9\/11 as next billion civilized guys, I still think that would have been a great thing to do.<\/p>\n
But somehow the guys with the Grand End to Evil theories about turning the Mideast into an American protectorate decided to divert all that national will to a big nation-building project by means of our highly successful adventure in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9\/11. The Gang That Couldn\u2019t Shoot Straight took us into that war, shouting \u201cdeficits don\u2019t matter!\u201d and \u201ccakewalk\u201d and, six years we\u2019ve got a shiny new Iraq<\/a> still sucking up the blood and treasure, while teetering precariously. Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, the guys who like, committed 9\/11 are still on the loose (probably in Pakistan) and the Taliban who were their good buddies? Well, we\u2019ve gone from shooting them to trying integrate them into the hilarious simulacrum of a \u201cgovernment\u201d in our newest nation-building project<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is what you call \u201cmission creep\u201d. And when you are trying to do the impossible task of molding the dry sand of a bunch of Pashtun shepherds and kill crazies into a government, the only way a gluttonous bureaucracy knows how to think about that is \u201cWe need more blood and treasure!<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n Well, yes we do\u2013assuming it is our task to build Afghanistan into another American protectorate. On the other hand, if our mission was to protect the US from another 9\/11, I\u2019m not sold that this is the way to go. It appears that the international police work that has foiled terror plots all over the world (most recently in Colorado and NY) has much more to do with that than our Sisyphean attempts to prop up a corrupt govt in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n More and more, I\u2019m beginning to think that one of the strange polarities in American culture is the deathless faith our entire citizenry has in the machinery of government to save the world. The only real difference is that the left thinks if you throw enough money at the government it will build the nation called \u201cthe US\u201d and the Right thinks that if you throw enough money at the government it will build some Third World hellhole into a Mini-Me of the US. Me: I think \u201cIf you like Obamacare, you\u2019ll love Afghanistan! Another fine product of the US Government!\u201d If the Great Society didn\u2019t work here, what on earth makes Righties think it will work in the Graveyard of Empires?<\/p>\n One of the entertaining fissures that is now starting to open on the Right is the split between the folks who cling to the vision of the Grand End to Evil project of a world redeemed by democratic capitalism imposed on the world through Michael Ledeen\u2019s beloved \u201ccreative destruction\u201d (a sort of Trotsky in pin-striped suit fantasy) and the populist fury of folks like Beck who are dimly aware that this doomed fantasy is no small part of why we are in hock up to our eyebrows. Gigantic empires are expensive to maintain and people are in less and less of a mood to spend their kid\u2019s inheritance (and their kid\u2019s blood) on\u2026 what exactly? A war that has morphed into playing footsie with the Taliban?<\/p>\n So you get the inchoate rage of 9\/12 movement and all that\u2013and you get the guys who beat the drums for war, (and stampeded the 9\/12ers) the Frums and the Little Green Footballs guys now trying to ride the tiger and figure out a way to keep the increasingly rudderless and chaotic morass that used to be \u201cconservatism\u201d from blindly opposing everything Obama does. That\u2019s because Obama is aiming to continue Mr. Bush\u2019s wars. If the mob of Becksters spins out of control, it could wind up imperilling that, so we are seeing more and more of the End to Evil guys trying to dim his star a bit and trying to divert all that bubbling outrage away from anything that might endanger our increasingly pointless efforts in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n Me: I think George Will has called it.<\/a> What\u2019s the point anymore?<\/p>\n