you still don't have to be dumb. C'mon Tom, in this mutual admiration society we call "Current Events" you are one of the shining lights.

The pipeline deal is absolutely accurate. Time will tell, no sense in debating it now. "More will be revealed".

(However, when all (D. S. was particularly noisy about it) were saying that after the Taliban was overthrown the oppressed Afghanis would rally behind Democracy and peace would reign and I said it wasn't going to happen, there were tribes and space with no "give", I was right.)

T. B. - "As far as the "Vietnam" analogy goes:
First, our enemies are going to find it a bit tougher to hide in the jungle this time."

Very, very seriously. How can you say that after watching how the Taliban escaped, how US and Pakistani troops cannot find OBL, and how US authorities acknowledge the freedom of travel back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan and back is?

Seriously. The US doesn't rule that countryside. No one EVER has except the local tribe. The British outposts through the Khyber Pass were slightly less than one day apart. If a person got stuck outside a fort at night, they were done for. (As a guide once told me about a lake I was canoeing in, "At night the only things that moves here are alligators and things about to become alligators.")

And it's porous.

T. B. - "Second, we don't have to pussyfoot around paralyzed by the Cold War, worrying that the Soviet Union is going to escalate its support of the other side."

The Russian comment was that they got bogged down in Afghanistan, and we don't have, propaganda be damned, any better weapons than they did. You're in a region where relying on high-tech can be very dangerous.

However, regarding "pussyfooting". The US had better start "pussyfooting" and killing fewer people in countries where we may want cooperation someday. The Brits told US, and they have a lot of experience with colonies.

I know Frank and his buddy think that Afghans, at least, are getting used to being killed. I don't think that's true, and I think creating enemies unnecessarily is wise. And to be worth saving you have to be better than the bad guys.

Arf