Every time I think the Washington Post may be capable of rational thought, there comes along something like this.

Of course, I may be being unfair; it's by the man who made bipartisanism into a synonym for "do what my party wants" while continuing to get tjhe respect he deserved when he used to do actual reporting. Even the infernal Ruth Marcus has had a glimmer of common sense; it may be that the rest of the page is shaping up.

And it is of course possible that this is an example of the new business model of the Post, I did log on to respond to it; others have done the same - the Post's advertisers are doubtless duly impressed, even though I didn't look at any ads, and would regard sponsorship of this column as a direcommendation.

To content:

After having outlined a substantive disagreement between the Ambassador to Afghanistan and the field commander, His Wisdom quotes Clark Clifford " a wrong decision was better than no decision at all." There are times when that is true; but if pausing about Afganistan for a month is one of them, we we've already made the worst decision 90 times or so; one more won't hurt.

But this is more than "get off the pot"; the decision the Fighting Keyboarder opposes would be worse than none: in short, Obama should refuse (on a political question) to back up the Ambassador he picked, and abdicate civilian control of the military; all this on the gamble that Afghanistan is governable - by the armies of a foreign power.


Let's have a thousand words:



This is Dr. William Brydon, all that returned of the first European army that tried to govern Afghanistan. The Soviets did too, as even the press corps should recall. I do not think that that makes Obama's decision obvious; but tjhe Village Idiots think there is nothing to consider.