The war without end

This column is today's must-read.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that conditions on the ground right now ((in Afghanistan)) are awful, so it looks as though we’re going to be there for a long, long while.

This is a terrible thing to contemplate because in addition to the human toll (nearly half of all the American troop deaths in Afghanistan have occurred since Mr. Obama took office), the war is a giant roadblock in the way of efforts to deal effectively with deteriorating economic and social conditions here in the United States.

Look around at the economy, the public school system, the federal budget deficits, the fiscal conditions plaguing America’s state and local governments. We are giving short shrift to all of these problems and more while pouring staggering amounts of money (the rate is now scores of billions of dollars a year) into a treacherous, unforgiving and hopelessly corrupt sinkhole in Afghanistan...

We are never going to build a stable, flourishing society in Afghanistan. What we desperately need is a campaign of nation-building to counteract the growing instability and deterioration in the United States.

Iraq, of course, merely compounds this ongoing, self-inflicted sucking chest wound... (got to love the continued kabuki dance in that story: "just two weeks before all but 50,000 U.S. troops head home...")