Lies, Damned Lies, Delusions, and Failure

McConnell is following standard Chimpy policy by grossly overstating the amount of Afghanistan territory in the hands of the Government. He then goes it one further, and grossly UNDERstates the amount of the country under control by the Taliban (it is generally acknowledged in most circles that the Taliban hold sway over more than half of the country.)Lying from Chimpy’s minions is no surprise. It’s what we expect. Chimpy and all of his so-called “advisers” live in an opaque, lead-lined bubble where no information need ever try to penetrate the defenses. I was, however, shocked to see that the Afghani Government is even worse than Chimpy’s Liars’ Club. The Afghani government has done nothing but rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic since the day they were installed. I’m not about to lay all the blame on Karzai, of course; the Afghani people were ready and willing to work with the moronic monkey, who turned his back on them to fling poo at Iraq. But it is past certain that a bunch of guys this disconnected from reality have absolutely no chance of ever improving the situation in the country.

Those of you remember would have to agree; this is reminiscent of Saigon in 1975, where the Government insisted everything was OK right up to the moment the North Vietnamese entered the city. For those of you who don’t remember back that far, think “Baghdad Bob.” We now have “Kabul Karzai,” and he and his people seem to be completely out of it.

What a mess. Heckuva job AGAIN, Chimpy.

After six years of US-led military support and billions of pounds in aid, security in Afghanistan is “deteriorating” and President Hamid Karzai’s government controls less than a third of the country, America’s top intelligence official has admitted.Mike McConnell testified in Washington that Karzai controls about 30% of Afghanistan and the Taliban 10%, and the remainder is under tribal control.

The Afghan government angrily denied the US director of national intelligence’s assessment yesterday, insisting it controlled “over 360″ of the country’s 365 districts. “This is far from the facts and we completely deny it,” said the defence ministry.

But the gloomy comments echoed even more strongly worded recent reports by thinktanks, including one headed by the former Nato commander General James Jones, which concluded that “urgent changes” were required now to “prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state”.

Although Nato forces have killed thousands of insurgents, including several commanders, an unrelenting drip of violence has eroded Karzai’s grip in the provinces, providing fuel to critics who deride him as “the mayor of Kabul”.

A suicide bomb at a dog fight near Kandahar last week killed more than 80 people. Yesterday fighting erupted in neighbouring Helmand when the Taliban ambushed a police patrol. The interior ministry said 25 militants were killed; a Taliban spokesman said they lost one.

A day earlier, the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation aid agency said it feared that Cyd Mizell, an American employee kidnapped in Kandahar last month, had been killed in captivity.

A big injection of foreign troops has failed to bring stability. The US has almost 50,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and - twice as many as in 2004 - while the UK has 7,700, mostly in Helmand. Another 2,200 US marines are due to arrive next month to combat an expected Taliban surge.

Nato commanders paint the suicide bombs and ambushes as signs of a disheartened enemy. Yesterday, Brigadier Andrew Mackay, commander of the British contingent in southern Afghanistan, said the Taliban were “worn down”, running low on fighters, and being ostracised by local communities. “Logistically they are also challenged. The cumulative effect of all of this is that they are having to change their modus operandi, and that is why we are seeing more asymmetric attacks and suicide bombings in places such as Kandahar,” he said.

Last throes, anyone? Could we get some new script writers working on this stuff?