I began writing this on the anniversary of that fateful day seven years ago when all hell broke loose and that psycho Bin Laden put a loaded bazooka into the sweaty hands of a dry-drunk frat-boy named George W. Bush. God knows, the ruins of the twin towers hadn’t even stopped smoking before Dubya started blowing holes in everything pretty much at random. The war he started in Afghanistan – the “good war” as many see it – is nearing the end of its seventh year, still sowing death and destruction week after week, with no end in sight. This success story has become a dire failure, even in the eyes of military commanders, and our primary objective appears to have become one of staying there permanently. Not very different from our goal in Iraq, in essence. We allied ourselves with some of the most retrograde elements in Afghanistan, many of whom worked alongside the Taliban before our invasion (and in tandem with our own intelligence services two decades ago). These are the power brokers in that country – blood-soaked creatures like Dostum. Little wonder large areas of the country are beyond the control of the national government.

So, if Afghanistan is now a base for a resurgent Al Qaeda even with tens of thousands of U.S. troops there, how is it any less of a threat than it was before the invasion seven years ago? I’ve heard no satisfactory answer to that question, and yet there appears to be a strong bipartisan consensus to keep the meat-grinder running, even though increasing civilian casualties are bringing the predictable result of turning the nation (not to mention neighboring Pakistan) passionately against the occupation. This is what we’re sending young, battle-weary soldiers into, placing this imperial project on their necks and making them hostages to some ephemeral “victory” as a reward for helping to pacify Iraq. Only Afghanistan is not Iraq, where one confessional community can relatively easily be played off another and where a murderous civil conflict (sparked by our invasion and ham-fisted occupation) drove large components of the Sunni insurgency into an alliance of convenience with the U.S. in order to counter ascendant Shiite power and avoid a total rout.

In light of the fact that we are now embroiled in two endless wars, it is almost shocking to think that we may be on the brink of sending back to the White House the same cabal of neo-conservative fanatics that carried Ahmed Chalabi on their shoulders and drove us into the ditch that is the Iraq war. McCain’s campaign manager Charlie Black was a big Chalabi booster; the candidate’s chief foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann as well. Scheunemann is a bona-fide neo-con, member of the Iraq Liberation Council and, as noted previously, a paid lobbyist for the government of Georgia up until earlier this year… though he is still apparently representing their president in his new role of shadow national security advisor. I have to say, Georgian President Saak’ashvili certainly got his money’s worth this week, with the advent of a major party candidate for the vice presidency of the United States going on record as saying we may go to war with Russia over Georgia. Why this Alaskan creature is not considered a dangerous lunatic is a matter for Americans to sort out (and quickly), but she’s probably a big hit in Tbilisi right now.

Now George W. is frantically rooting around Waziristan, hoping to pull a turbaned rabbit out of a hat for John McCain before election day. Thus may we be granted yet another seven years bad luck… if we’re not very vigilant indeed.

luv u,

jp

As I write these words, Senator John McCain, F.O.B. (Friend of Bush) is delivering his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. (I think I hear him yelling “Fight with me!” – watch out!) I have to say, just having had a good look at his audience, that is one of the whitest gatherings of people I have ever seen, and I grew up in the suburbs. After listening to bits and pieces of what has been said over the past few days, I’m getting a pretty good feel for what will be the overriding themes of the G.O.P. general election campaign. A bit different from 2004, it seems. That year, “service” was largely vicarious – i.e. honoring our people in uniform in the abstract (from 5,000 miles away) while denigrating the service record of the opposing party’s nominee quite shamelessly (recall the band-aids with purple hearts printed on them being sported by the smirking manatees on the convention floor, almost none of whom had ever heard a shot fired in anger).

This year it’s different – the veteran is on the G.O.P. ticket, and there’ll be no diminishing his war record. In fact, there will be very little scrutiny of McCain’s general attitude towards war as it relates to his worldview and his vision for American power in the coming decade. Judging by his past statements, McCain feels bitterness over the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. He has expressed the opinion that the failure of U.S. policy resulted from lack of resolve on the part of our political leaders, particularly L.B.J. (McCain is a little less hard on Nixon, whom he credits for bombing North Vietnam more relentlessly.) If this sounds at all familiar, it should: this has been the dominant conservative assessment of America’s failure in Vietnam since the end of that war. McCain and other high profile P.O.W.’s have been at the core of that revisionist project from the very beginning, ever since the Nixon administration first demagogued on the P.O.W./M.I.A. issue during the war.

To say the least, this should probably be a point of some concern to voters. We’re talking about a guy who believes in his heart that, if we had just bombed a little harder, we could have won the Vietnam war. Based on his perspective as a prisoner in Hanoi, McCain feels that Nixon’s bombing drove North Vietnam to the bargaining table. And yet it is demonstrably true that the Paris Peace Accord signed in early 1973 was in essence the same as the agreement that could have been had in October 1972, prior to the massive U.S. terror bombing of Hanoi/Haiphong around Christmas of that year. Moreover, the accord reflected terms at least as favorable to Hanoi if not more so than those that had been put forward for many years prior to that – certainly more favorable than what the “Vietcong” (NLF) had offered in the early 1960s. All of the death, destruction, massive bombing, appalling chemical defoliation (that still kills today, incidentally)… all of that was for nothing. So… we should have bombed more? We dropped many times more bombs on Indochina than in all theatres of World War II combined, with most ordinance falling on South Vietnam, our supposed ally. Sorry, but the suggestion is simply bizarre and obscene.

This is the “maverick” we want making decisions that affect millions of lives? I think not… even if he brings a caribou-hunting evangelist back to Washington with him.