Posted on 09/19/2003 6:02:29 AM PDT by SJackson
For more than a year, the Democratic mantra on Afghanistan was that President Bush was not doing enough -- not spending enough money, not building the army fast enough, not deploying troops to tame the warlords. The charge was neglect and aversion to nation-building. The result? Afghanistan is "falling back into chaos," said Al Gore last November.
One could reasonably argue that slowly building up the Kabul government while maintaining a kind of warlord equilibrium is the best that we can hope for right now. Anything more ambitious -- attempting to revolutionize a pre-industrial economy, radically extend democracy or take down the warlords -- would be bound to fail.
Nonetheless, it is useful to have the Democratic opposition make the case for nation-building. This year, however, the Democrats have adopted the opposite tune, denouncing the administration for ambitious, budget-busting nation-building in Iraq.
The Democrats are not quite prepared to say that we should not be spending any money on Iraq, and they all line up for the $66 billion earmarked for "protecting our troops" (although, as their own Dennis Kucinich points out, the best and cheapest way to protect troops is to bring them home).
But when it comes to the other $20-odd billion for infrastructure, the Democrats have had a field day blasting the administration. The universal theme is: Why there and not here?
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
A man came to the Mullah Nasruddin and said, "I have bad news Mullah. One of your bulls got loose from your field and entered my property. It gored one of my prize cows and now my cow is dead. How shall we deal with this tragedy, O wise one?"
Nasruddin explained, "This is a natural event. It is something that is bound to happen from time to time, and it would be a mistake for us to make too much of it. My bull cannot be held accountable for his actions, and, though I am sorry you have lost your cow, there is nothing I can do for you."
The neighbor smiled and said, "Thank you for your wisdom Mullah, but I am afraid I mis-spoke about some of the details. In fact, it was one of MY bulls that got loose -- and it is one of YOUR cows that was killed."
"Ah, this case is more complicated than I thought! It may be that some form of restitution may be required!"
It is pretty hard not to have something posted twice, especially on an excellent column as is this one by Krauthammer.
Chances are the other thread dropped out and as long as the same article is not posted, say, 15 times, it is okay. I'm glad the good ones are posted more than once otherwise I might never see them.
I did come across this column elsewhere and was going to post it myself but did a search and it came up. So, in that case, I post this...
...bttt
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