"If the time ever does come when we look back on our intervention in Afghanistan as a humiliating debacle, this past weekend may well be identified as one of the moments when the calamity became irreversible."

Sorry, I couldn't get past the first sentence in this one... I think maybe the day you refer to was the day we invaded. Did anyone really think that this little adventure would turn out differently?

This war has been an absolute mess from the start. It was just plain a bad idea. You can try to hang the failure of this "intervention" on Obama, but we all know what you are up to. You are about a subtle as a hammer.

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I also enjoy the use of the word "intervention." How creative. Isn't that like calling a janitor a "sanitary engineer?" It makes the janitor feel better, but everyone else know what's going on. How about we stick with "invasion and occupation?"

telling us that our 750 plus foreign military installations are not there to protect everyone's freedom, and to fight terrorism.

Long live the Empire!

I'm sure that "protecting freedom" and "fighting terrorism" are the stated intentions of our "intervention." However, that doesn't make the entire thing a huge, Bush-designed, clusterfuck, right from the start.

Yes, those were the "stated intentions," but not the real ones.

Long live the Empire!

The sovereign nation of Afghanistan, run by the Afghan Taliban, openly and unabashedly called for the destruction of the United States and housed the camps at which the 9/11 hijackers were trained.

16 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. The expedition was planned poorly, executed even more poorly, and completely undermined by the further misadventures in Iraq. I am all about calling American imperialism what it is, but none of these facts contradict the fact that the government of the sovereign nation of Afghanistan openly and unabashedly called for the destruction of the United States and aided and abetted a criminal act of war against it. Any other nation would have done the same thing.

Afghanistan would that have been?

Long live the Empire!

I think it was the day the Bush operatives stole our presidential election.

The sovereign government run by the Taliban that took over from the Northern Alliance after the Soviets left. The same sovereign government that destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. That sovereign government.

Note I am saying nothing about our strategy, tactics, or weapons of choice (including cluster bombs etc.). I am saying nothing about our engagement with the population. I am saying nothing about our wider agenda in central Asia. I am saying nothing about our relationship with Israel. I am merely pointing out that when one sovereign government attacks another, the latter has a responsibility to the people it governs to ensure that such an attack doesn't happen again.

Did that soverign government control all of Afghanistan, and didn't we use the Northern Alliance to prevail in what appeared to be a civil war?

I take your point and mostly agree with it. We certainly owe something, after we abandoned the country after helping defeat the Soviets, which resulted in the widespread destruction that is still evident.

My main argument is that the line that we want a stable working democracy there is a G. D. lie. We are fighting for a compliant, patsy government to cover for our exploitation of the area.

The inconvient truth is that the Taliban, with its religious fanaticism, injustice, etc., does provide some goods and services to its controlled areas, something that neither the occupation nor the "sovereign" government seems able to do.

Long live the Empire!

My main argument is that the line that we want a stable working democracy there is a G. D. lie. We are fighting for a compliant, patsy government to cover for our exploitation of the area.

I think that's a bit harsh, but I don't essentially disagree. I'm sure individual members of the armed forces, UN or US diplomatic personnel, and so on had good motives, as much as I am sure that Bush & Co. did not. I disagree that it matters whether or not "all" of Afghanistan was under the control of the Taliban, because it was in the areas under their control that Al Qaida was openly training. But I think your point basically stands. (That's why I'm still holding out hope Obama figures a way out of this mess).

The inconvient truth is that the Taliban, with its religious fanaticism, injustice, etc., does provide some goods and services to its controlled areas, something that neither the occupation nor the "sovereign" government seems able to do.

That may be true in a very general sense, though it's much more true of organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In any case I once spoke with a journalist who'd just gotten back from Kabul. He told me about an encounter he'd had, face-to-face, with the mothers of girls who had been killed by the Taliban for the horrific crime of going to school. They (the Taliban) made them hold hands and spread out in a long line, then walk over a minefield. I don't think that's justification enough to invade all by itself, but from the perspective of Afghan women it is very difficult to argue, even with the cluster bombs and the drone attacks and everything else, that US intervention has been entirely or even mostly a bad thing.