By PM Carpenter The Fifth Columnist
These instances aren’t nearly as rare as we’d all like them to be, but sometimes the childlike simplicity of the neoconservative mind prompts a grimacing double-take — one of those ‘Did he really say that?’ moments, such as last Sunday morning, when Sen. John McCain sat as a guest on CNN’s "State of the Union," presenting in living color the world in black-and-white analysis.
"The corruption has got to stop," said McCain at one point about Afghanistan’s Karzai government and in partial answer to the unbounded question, "What is the United States doing wrong when it comes to the fundamental challenge of getting the Afghans ready to [protect] themselves?"
Corruption. Bad. Stop. Just stop. Seemingly as simple as that. Just say it — and really mean it — and maybe thousands of years of regional culture will slam on the brakes and then veer like Ottumwa, Iowa. Nay, not maybe; they will, but first we must really, really mean it.
Say, to fix Afghanistan’s corruption and settle on a goo-goo establishment, how about a presidential-election run-off? Yes, that’s the ticket, said McCain. "If there is a finding and it’s that the election was corrupted to the point where a run-off would have been called for, have a run-off" — repeating, for emphasis, that "corruption in the government is a huge problem," while never associating the lack of the first two conditions with the interfering presence of the third.
Finally, erase all that, I guess, because what we really need, continued McCain, is "to have the Karzai government show us that we — it is going to truly reform." That would be the people who stole the election. Generally, when an organized group of political cutthroats steals an election, its reputation of yearning for "true reform" takes a bit of a hit. But for Mr. McCain there remains hope, simply because the neoconservative mind’s simplistic analyses demand it. Reality is rude.
Or comically framed, such as when McCain offered this: "The Afghan soldiers are very good. They’re the most highly respected in — in their country" — and other than the American soldiers and Taliban soldiers, that’s probably true, except when the very good Afghan soldiers are busy extorting the local population.
Read more at The Fifth Columnist
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