(sigh)
Powell: Intelligence suggests Iran trying to adapt missiles for nukes
I have nothing to add. Draw your own conclusions.
Update: Actually, I do have something to add, namely this, from the Ironic Times:
Last week, in a story about President Bush's goals for his second term, we quoted him as saying: “My top priority is to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims.” In fact, he said: “My top priority is to spread democracy in the Middle East.” We apologize for the error.
2 comments:
The LA Times today reported that Powell's announcement caught everyone off guard, including the Congress and the Bush administration. Do you suppose that they were planning to have Condoleeza Rice announce this during her confirmation hearings--or upon taking her new post--and Powell deliberately stole her thunder? Just a thought.
From failed state... to narco-state. That's precisely what a UN report released yesterday warns is happening in Afghanistan, according to a recent BBC article. According to the report, 87% of the world's opium now comes from Afghanistan, and 1 in 10 Afghanis--2.3 million citizens--are involved in its production. Not only have opium exports returned to their peak, pre-Taliban levels, but the area cultivated for poppies (a "leading indicator" for future crops) has shot up this year to nearly twice its previous peak!
We must give credit where credit is due. This remarkable economic turnaround is due entirely to the Bush administration's farsighted decision to leave Afghanistan alone. They refused to burden Afghanistan with meddlesome peacekeepers or unwanted economic assistance, and as a result, their "tough love" laissez-faire policy has truly renewed the entrepreneurial spirit of the Afghani people.
So now, as the Bush administration seeks a way to withdraw from Iraq--perhaps, as Bell Curve suggests, to free up those tropps for other "Adventures in Nation-Building"--I respectfully submit that the Bush administration might wish to consider Afghanistan's "blossoming" economy as a model for future efforts (perhaps coca will grow in Mosul?)
For as the UN Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004 explains, what has truly begun to lift the people of Afghanistan out of decades of poverty and violence are neither the broken promises of financial aid from Western governments, nor the unrealized dreams of foreign investment--nor even the elusive blessings of democracy--but rather, it is the humble poppy that has become, "the main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond among previously quarrelsome peoples."
Now that's an opiate for the masses!
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