Not Winning



In my time zone, watching a presidential debate means staying up till 3am and most of the local TV channels don't have the rights (I thought they'd actually be paid to carry it).
So generally don't bother, as all the sound bites are of course available later and nothing new anyway.
There was the obligatory intro on the economy and the bailout - neither candidate has a clue what to do about it, but that's OK since not many people would want the responsibility of deciding whether and how to spend $700 B. My only thought is that it is terminally bizarre that a bunch of Wall St. bankers succeeded in doing what Bin Laden and the entire Soviet Union failed to do - bring the US economy to its knees.

Anyway, only to comment on the inevitable claim by McCain the no-brain that the war in Iraq is being 'won'. No. Wars in the Middle East are never won, least of all by foreign crusading forces. Sure, despots can be overthrown, armies can be routed, and even insurgencies - temporarily - squashed. But the wars are never won - they simple create a whole new batch of traumatic circumstances and bloody problems for the next generation; or sooner than that.
And as for Afghanistan - yes, 'we' - the US and NATO are doing the right thing, at least in the time we are not bombing wedding parties, and we are reversing actions of the Taleban when they were in power (specifically, reversing the Talebans' success in stopping the poppy trade). We are the good guys and the Taleban are the bad guys. But unfortunately, the Taleban will win because it is their country and not ours. The West (including Russia) has tried to conquer Afghanistan maybe ten time in the last 200 years, each more catastrophically than the last. Read the books.
Specifically, read the legendary (but still remarkably still living) Robert Fisk's Great War for Civilisation. It'll take you a year, so it's good value.