Dumb and Dumbererer

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:

1. The man was paid to participate in the negotiations?!!! Even if he was the real McCoy, he would be just as likely to fake the talks just to receive more payments. A prerequisite to negotiation is that each side has something the other actually wants. If you have to pay the other side to show up, then its a safe bet that any resolution is DOA.

2. The real Taliban leadership is believed to be in Pakistan, hiding with the help of the Pakistani government?!!! At what point does Pakistan stop being our Ally? We invaded Afghanistan and unseated the Taliban in the first place because they were harboring our enemies. How is this very different?

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.