ANDREW SULLIVAN: Blair’s courage makes the anti-Americans look small

Technology marches on but we are 400,000 grunts and scads of airlift and seaborne capability short of a full deck. And despite what Rummy says for public consumption, we are not currently capable of fighting two conventional wars.

Conventional being the key there.

I see Bush's treatment of North Korea as the natural result of someone who has inherited a screamin' mess. It's going to be a while before anyone can figure out what to do, I suspect. Imagine becoming the step-parent of a schizophrenic pyromaniac adolescent. That's what Clinton left us with and that's what Bush is magically supposed to fix.

O ye of the mighty mental synapse, are you now going to tell me that Tony Blair is driving this effort, after it is clear that he and his sick left-wing coterie were unwilling and most unproductive passengers on the bus of anti-terrorism for lo these many years? We are talking here about the same SOB who started talking tough and put his boys in harm's way to bomb the civilians of Belgrade to help the al-qaida-nauts of Albania?

Well, OK. Although I am wracked by waves of nausea whenever I hear the words "Tony Blair," Ivan (and your own intelligent self) have convinced me to give the ferret-two-faced bastard and Clinton Butt-Boy his begrudged due.

So I'll grant you guys this: At least Tough Tony and his party are no longer actively inhibiting those few left within the British Defense and Intelligence establishments, which they had almost succeeded in emasculating, in getting about their tasks. They also serve who are smart enough to get out of the way.

We must consider the untintended consequence of this noble effort the fact that we will have to look at Tony Blair as PM until the Second Coming. By which time, thanks to the efforts of Tough Tony and his Party, The Sceptered Isle will look, smell, and function something like the island of Trinidad, without the benefit of a tropical beach.

But in recently liberated Afghanistan the Americans have done all they can to set up an indigenous government and are pouring millions of dollars into reconstruction.

Make that hundreds of millions, $800M+ I believe since 911, and $173M+ plus even in the year before 911. In the following thread see additional links starting in message #9:

Humanitarian Work Progressing in Afghanistan

Here is something that is worth kicking around. I don't think Sullivan's characterization is unfair. In the matter of Korea, what we have seen is "an incoherent mix of bluster and appeasment."

I see a bit more coherence than that, and even a flash of "stratergery" as the Bushies shift responsibility to the U.N., back off slightly, and put the North Koreans in the position of blustering to, and threatening war on, the "world" rather than just the U.S.

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