Some Good News and Some Bad News

Let's by God start with the good news from Baghdad ! We have a definite show of unity between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority. After all the delays in forming the government and the months of death spiral of sectarian violence, at last, a glimmer of hope as Shia and Sunni join in a common purpose.
Alright, we confess that it might be better if the common purpose was other than to make the United States wrong, but its a start.
At issue is a recent series of explosions in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad. The Shia residents said it was bombs and mortars and blamed the Sunni insurgents. "Nonsense", says the U.S. military now responsible for preventing such attacks in this area. It was a "gas line explosion" that "triggered secondary blasts, " so saith the U.S. military.
Here's where the good news comes in ! The Sunni insurgents step up to the defense of their Shia brothers and take responsibility for the attack ! See ? Shia and Sunni standing together against a common foe. Us. We're starting to feel better about the whole thing.

(BTW, the above image was the best we could do viv a vis a picture of a Sunni and a Shiite shaking hands. This is al-Jafari, a Shia, and Talibani, a Kurd and the Kurds are "overwhelmingly Sunni". Try google image for "Shia Sunni unity" or "Shia Sunni handshake" and see what you get.)


The bad news comes from Afghanistan. Again. This celebratory group is made up of Taliban fighters. You remember the Taliban. We crushed their military, drove them out of power and established a free and democratic state in their place. Remember ? Oh, surely you remember.
According to this piece by Sara Daniel from Le Nouvel Observateur translated by truthout, things have become very, very grim indeed. That's two "verys".
Among the high ( or low) lights of the report:

• The Taliban have attacked 300 schools in the past 6 months to prevent the education of girls.
• Confidence in government has collapsed to the point that a recent poll of 29 provinces found that nobody (as in not a single person) would turn to "the authorities" for help with a problem.
• Corruption has reached the point, according to former planning Minister Ramazan Bachardoust, "even the Commission Against Corruption is corrupt."
• President Karzai, again according to Bachardoust, must rely on the warlords to keep order and the warlords are cutting deals with the Taliban.
• And everybody is scheming for a piece of the billion dollar heroin business when "drug experts estimate that there has never been a better year for the poppy harvest in the history of Afghanistan."

Consider these things, Oh Best Beloved, read the rest of the piece if you can spare the anger and the tears, meditate on the lives and treasure that we have squandered on this ill-planned and wretchedly executed enterprise, register to vote and

Stay Naked
jd