War of the Worlds v. Global War on Terror

So Martians provide the best view as "completely neutral observer(s)" in deciding between Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Charles Krauthammer's blog on the question: "which is the real war?? Afghanistan remains a failed state ruled by heroin warlords riding ponies with black market weapons seven years after the U.S. dethroned the still-around-and-coming-back-in-style Taliban. Iraq remains a hotbed of Sunni insurgency and Shia paybacks, and is far and away more populated of the two. Charlie is right about one thing though... ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question. Iraq certain has more blood-bags per acre and it's a hell of a lot easier to bury your spaceships under the sand for a millennium of waiting to arise and chow down. Cheery.




So let's not ask then. That leaves us with the question as to why Afghanistan remains more important in the conflict of ending Al-Q style operations. Afghanistan... Al-Q training camps... Propaganda aside Charlie, Al-Q isn't in the business of running states and hasn't the infrastructure to take over Iraq. Al-Q lived in Sudan and Afghanistan because they were failed states, and so there was no dominant army to feel challenged by their armed operations. Or possess the ability to evict them. "Strategic realities" point to any failed state in which Al-Q should find sanctuary and a place to train. The only "centrality" Iraq possesses is that as an unresolved and non-uniformed conflict where eager recruits either prove their merit or get turned into dogchow. Al-Q isn't in Iraq for the view.

Fast comes the accusation that liberals point to Afghanistan because they don't have the spine needed for a real fight:

It is useful to the Democrats to claim that Afghanistan is important (to Al-Qaeda) to cover themselves when the claim is made their all a bunch of wimps when it comes to fighting a war to its conclusion.

Oh yes, because... the Republicans fought the War in Afghanistan to a conclusion? Oh wait... Bush and his cohorts proved too ditsy to fight that war to it's conclusion, and NATO had to step in and prop that war up. How are things going?

A UN Security Council report released mid-March said the number of insurgency related incidents in January 2007 was double that of the same month last year.

Meanwhile, the Taliban returns to some of it's favorite government functions by hanging men accused of being NATO spies.

What lies beyond refute is that the days of the 'war on terror' are numbered. The Republicans love the line that "we fight them over there so that we won't have to fight them here" and love to smirk in front of television cameras that since we went to Iraq, there hasn't been a terrorist attack here. Does that mean if there is one, Republicans will suddenly support withdrawal? What about the two years between 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq? And why are the Republicans suddenly abandoning the international community and it's own allies in the "coalition of the willing" who have suffered Al-Q attacks despite the occupation of Iraq? Now those are some questions that beg answers. As for calling this the "war on terror:"

Democrats allegedly saw anti-terrorism as police work. The Bush administration, by contrast, would unleash the military. Lurking behind this dichotomy was the assumption that jihadist terrorists were mainly creatures of their state sponsors. If the real threat was not terrorist networks but governments, then of course war, rather than crime, was the correct prism.

We invaded Afghanistan because they were the state sponsor of Al-Q and 9-11, or as close to that definition as anyone is going to get. Of course, that gets brushed aside as soon as conservatives seek to justify the Iraq War in terms of Al-Q. This definition is indeed doomed, since one can hardly place Iraq as the state sponsor, for all that Al-Q uses it's cities and roads as one big jungle gym. So many conservatives leap to label Iran or Syria as the new state sponsor of Al-Q, despite the sheer ridiculousness that either would share power or esteem with that dirty and homeless private army.

Ever yet ditsy, the focus of the Bush Administration has drifted away from viewing the defeat of Al-Q in Iraq as the primary focus of the occupation and to preventing the ascendancy of Iran. No longer do we remain in Iraq to contain the possibility of Al-Q taking over it's oil fields, which was laughable from the start. Now the focus of the "war on terror" is poised to become a war against a natural foe of Al-Q, despite the will and growing friendship between the Tehran and the supposedly-free one in Baghdad. Sometimes democracy gives you something you don't want: the will of the majority. Time to put this so-called "war on terror" out on the curb. And trade reactionary grandizements for progressive policy. Here comes 2008.

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war on terror, Iraq, Iran, Al-Qaeda, terrorism, GWOT, Bush, democrat, liberal, conservative, Iraq War