The New Surge

Barack Obama has kept good on his campaign promise to escalate the occupation of Afghanistan by sending 17,000 additional soldiers. Oddly, I don't hear conservatives complaining about this massive expenditure being "generational theft."

Sending your kid off to war probably seemed patriotic and necessary in 2002. As families lose their houses, jobs, 401ks, health care and everything else they worked their entire lives for, the thought of losing your child to a foreign adventure becomes less appealing.

Maybe Obama will get around to repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" one of these days so all our gay guys and gals can serve openly and miserably in the 120˚ heat. That will present an interesting conflict for conservatives. Which do they like more: oppressing gays or lobbing bombs at Al Qaeda?

Afghanistan is known as the "good war" because it had more to do with 9/11 than Iraq--something we like to congratulate ourselves on regularly. It's also known to be more "winnable" by the chattering pundit class, which is interesting considering that Afghanistan has been nicknamed "The Graveyard of Empires." Conventional wisdom in Washington is so often correct that I'm sure we'll be the exception to history on this one. Afghanistan will become the first Jeffersonian Democracy built on heroin exports!