Double post on Stand Down/NWB:
The US Government has pulled the Special Forces and is now using mercs from DynCorp to protect Karzai. With their record of incompetence and criminal behavior, there should be an investigation.
Can the hawks really defend this decision? It does not seem even to be rational. Colombia policy often flies under the radar, but Afghanistan seems the wrong place, and now the wrong time -for purely political reasons- to test run such a policy. Perhaps the White House thinks Americans won't notice (which is quite possible) or that foreign opinion does not matter. Bush et al. have been acting as if they can safely assume both things are true. Perle and Wolfowitz have been doing nothing but stirring up trouble. As Matthew Hogan said below [on NWB here] these guys are the true isolationists, and in the long run we all agree their policies are going to hurt the country. But I think they are going to hurt Bush as well. There is something absurd about all of this crap. It's too ideological, and too public.