Bits and Pieces

I don’t normally read Michelle Malkin for the same reason(s) I don’t read Ann Coulter: both are just a wee bit too strident for my tastes. However… Malkin is back from Iraq and has posted what may be the first in a series of posts on her embed experience with the Dagger Brigade in northern Baghdad. Ms. Malkin returned from Iraq with renewed enthusiasm regarding the war. She believes it is “winnable,” and her experiences make for good reading. Lots of photos, too. Ms. Malkin’s associate, Bryan Preston, accompanied her to Iraq and has posted some of his observations at Hot Air. Both posts are lengthy and filled with detail; both are very good reads.

Anne Applebaum wrote a provocative yet sensible article for Slate yesterday about the Afghani poppy/opium problem entitled “Legalize It - How to solve Afghanistan's drug problem.”

Now NATO is fighting a war to eradicate opium from Afghanistan. Allegedly, this time around the goals are different. According to the modern British government, Afghanistan's illicit-drug trade poses the "gravest threat to the long term security, development and effective governance of Afghanistan," particularly since the Taliban are believed to be the biggest beneficiaries of drug sales. Convinced that this time they are doing the morally right thing, Western governments are spending hundreds of millions of dollars bulldozing poppy fields, building up counternarcotics squads, and financing alternative crops in Afghanistan. Chemical spraying may begin as early as this spring. But, in retrospect, might history not judge this war to be every bit as destructive and wasteful as the original Opium Wars?

[…]

The biggest producers are in the southern provinces where the Taliban is at its strongest. Every time a poppy field is destroyed, a poor person becomes poorer—and more likely to support the Taliban against the Western forces who wrecked his crops. Every time money is spent on alternative crops, it has to be distributed through a corrupt or nonexistent local bureaucracy. To date, the results of all this are utterly dispiriting.

Read the whole thing. Ms. Applebaum proposes a solution that has worked in the past and doesn’t seem all that unreasonable. But drugs in general, and opium production, in particular, are emotional subjects fraught with moral arguments. Arguments that, in most cases, are either unsupportable or counterproductive. I doubt seriously if anyone in power will listen to Ms. Applebaum, but they damned well should. There’s a lot at stake here, and I believe winning the Afghan war should take priority over moral posturing. It’s a sad state of affairs.

More on Obama in USA Today…the lede grafs:

CHICAGO — Two years in the U.S. Senate. Seven years in the Illinois Senate. One loss in a primary election for the U.S. House of Representatives. One stirring keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. Two best-selling books.

That's Barack Obama's political résumé. Is it enough to qualify him to be president?

The article goes on to answer the questions in point-counterpoint fashion and provides more detail about the candidate’s life story. The article is pretty much a puff-piece but is interesting, especially if you’re of the Democrat persuasion. I’m not in that camp (i.e., a Dem), but I found the article informative.

And then there’s this:

Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) formally announced his plans to run for President and instantly finds himself near the top of the heap. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 401 Likely Democratic Primary Voters finds that 22% favor New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) while 21% prefer Obama. Obama has consistently been in second place in several Rasmussen Reports polls, but this is the first time he has been in a virtual tie with the former First Lady.

I still think it’s too early to be talking about an election that will be held over a year and a half from now. I guess I’m all alone out here…