The Hammer Man in Fantasyland

Washington Post chief Bush apologist and neocon cheerleader Charles Krauthammer has inflated another trial balloon to fly over the beltway this morning. His column today, "The Afghan Miracle" starts out looking like an upbeat report on some of the rare good news out of that shattered nation. However, it doesn't take long for it to devolve into yet another issue of "Revisionist Historian Magazine" where he attempts to give Bush credit for things he never intended, and piddles on severe problems as non-issues.

This in Afghanistan, which only three years ago was not just hostile but untouchable. What do liberals have to say about this singular achievement by the Bush administration? That Afghanistan is growing poppies.

Good grief. This is news? "Afghanistan grows poppies" is the sun rising in the east. "Afghanistan inaugurates democratically elected president" is the sun rising in the west. Afghanistan has always grown poppies. What is President Bush supposed to do? Send 100,000 GIs to eradicate the crop and incite a popular rebellion?

The other complaint is that Karzai really does not rule the whole country. Again, the sun rises in the east. Afghanistan has never had a government that controlled the whole country. It has always had a central government weak by Western standards.

But Afghanistan's decentralized system works. Karzai controls Kabul, most of the major cities and much in between. And he is successfully leveraging his power to gradually extend his authority as he creates entirely new federal institutions and an entirely new military.

Now, this is some pretty serious glossing over, don't you think? The phrase "Afghanistan has always grown poppies" is an accurate statement technically, but it's highly misleading. No doubt there was always some level of illicit production going on, but before the government was taken down, they were still "underground" and limited in their scope. Now they appear to have no fear of any reprisal from the government and are a major producer. Is it Bush's job to fix this? Possibly not, but it certainly is a major problem. And the fact that this newly elected leader can't effectively control any of the country beyond a few major cities is obviously a bigger concern than he makes it out to be. That issue doesn't suddenly become unimportant simply because we reach the conclusion that we can't do anything about it.

Next, Krauthammer goes on to deliver the coup de grace. In typical Bush apologist fashion, he takes on the task of historical revision and claims that it was Bush's sole intention all along to have Afghanistan serve as the jumping off point for some futuristic vision of the forced spread of democracy around the globe.

What has happened in Afghanistan is nothing short of a miracle. Who is responsible for it? The New York Times gives the major credit to "the Afghan people" with their "courage and commitment." Courage and commitment there was, but the courage and commitment were curiously imperceptible until this administration conceived a radical war plan, executed it brilliantly, liberated the country and created from scratch the structures of democracy.

Afghanistan is the first graduate of the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy in rather hostile places. A success so remarkable and an end so improbable merit at least a moment of celebration.

Incredible. Perhaps I've just lost my mind and some of you should check me on this. Am I remembering incorrectly, or did we offer the Taliban numerous chances to stay in power if they would just cooperate and turn over bin Laden and his associates? It seems to me that they became the enemy in this war only after they refused to surrender the killers, thus clearly placing themselves on the side of the 9/11 terrorists. Of course, having wiped out the extant government, we decided to put in a democracy only as an afterthought, since it was the most desirable form of government to support America's interests.

Now, after our catastrophic lack of success in actually finding bin Laden, he truly becomes Osama bin Forgotten, and the Hawks all begin chanting that we only went in there in the first place to liberate the poor Afghanis and spread democracy across the globe. I'll take a moment and ask a rephrased version of the same question I ask neocons every time they try rewriting history this way. "If 9/11 had never happened, or if Afghanistan had not been bin Laden's location, do you think that Congress would have ever considered approving an invasion of that country just to institute a democracy there?" Thank you. I didn't think so.