
Sometimes I think pieces of information that are tangential to a story can be more revealing than the intentional focus. Reading between the cracks in the accepted narrative of this hard to believe NYT article on the pitfalls of negotiations in the Afghan war, two facts stood out more than the absurd fraud in the headline:
Certainly our interests in the Middle East are very complicated, but it is not backwards land. Up is not down and pigs still don't take off from Kabul airport, yet these two facts that seem essentially like admissions of total failure are "background" to the story.
Hemingway had a simple rule for playing poker: if a hand is good enough to check, it is good enough to raise. If it isn't good enough to raise, then fold. If we can't win in Afghanistan, then there is no point spending another day, another dollar and another soldier's life trying not to lose. In the Middle East we are being strung along like suckers. Only the oil and defense companies will walk away with a smile.
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