Whistling Past the Graveyard, Redux

What's new from the Graveyard of Empires?

Well, the big news right now is the fact that our general running the show in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is probably regretting he opened his fat fucking mouth. See, Stanley made the mistake of running his yap for the microphones in an interview of Rolling Stone.

Some people will do anything to get on the cover:



So McChrystal is in the Oval Office, called onto the carpet by a President who is described as "furious." According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (the law under which the military operates), the General is guilty of insubordination, a court-martial offense. Whether he'll be fired, broken to the ranks or allowed to resign remains to be seen - although our client ruler in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, has expressed his support for McChrystal.

No doubt those law-and-order types, the GOP, are foursquare behind the President in enforcing military discipline and the chain of command ... oh yeah, right. Never mind.

Meanwhile, a report surfaced that we, the taxpaying citizens of the United States are - gasp! - paying money to the Taliban! Paying the Bad Guys in dollars!

The news this morning acted all aghast at this revelation, while I shrugged and said, "It's old news."

And it is - I cited The Nation article in this post back in November.

We are (indirectly) paying Danegeld - routing money through "independent contractors" who in turn pay off the local warlords and Taliban in exchange for securing our supply lines - and anyone who's ever paid extortion money will tell you that the amount never goes down. There's no child or family or senior discount, either.

So, what do we do?

Simple.

Get the hell out of there.

Private McChrystal can have the honor of being the last soldier to walk out of the country.