http://www.unelected.org/2010/07/21/socialist-of-the-week-newt-gingrich/

See, I was confused before. I thought invading Afganistan, especially deciding halfway thru to also invade Iraq simultaneous, would be a glorious patriotic cakewalk. He must have found something new and explosive out . . . because otherwise he’d have been complaining about this from the get-go, right? Since any person over the age of 10 could have guessed this answer.

How did Gingritch pry this super-classified information loose from the Obama Administration? Good show, old bean! What finally clued you in?

I think the best chance to win the war is to crush the Pashtuns dream of dominating the country politically, the best way to do this is to arm and train the other ethnic minorities. It will probably cause a civil war, but it is a civil war our preferred side can win.

The Taliban didn’t take power in Afghanistan because they were some evil cabal intent on building a power base to export global Islamic revolution. They took power because nobody else in the country really cared, and the system of local warlord control was so corrupt that those who did care actually welcomed some centralized legal system to protect them from the warlords.

Up until the moment Al Qaeda flew planes into US buildings, the Taliban’s most prominent conflict was their civil war with the Northern Alliance, which was formed not because the local warlords were against imposition of Sharia law, but because they were opposed to any law trumping their own local power.

For the most part, it seems that the Taliban allowed Al Qaeda to operate freely not because they shared Al Qaeda’s desire to bring down America … but because Al Qaeda served as their henchmen when they needed dirty work done against rebelling warlords, and because Bin Laden had the connections to get money flowing from the Arab world into Afghanistan, which was becoming significantly poorer after the Taliban had banned poppy production.

Crushing the Taliban, as we did in 2002, was a necessary response to the 9/11 attacks – but it has always been folly to think we could nation build our way into Afghanistan not harboring terrorists once again. The way to keep Afghanistan from harboring terrorists was to let the Taliban know it was in their best interests to not allow terrorists to operate there anymore, a message we effectively established in a few months of our invasion. But it was almost inevitable that if we kept pumping billions of dollars into some new government while sending in our troops to protect it, we were most likely going to cultivate a government of corruption.

I know it’s nice if there are schools for women and elections and a liberal western view of pluralism. But the Afghan people are going to have to decide that they really want that, and are willing to fight for it. Meanwhile, imo the longer our Humvees and tanks roll up and down Afghan streets, and our helicopters and fighters and drones patrol Afghan skies, the more we feed the kind of nationalism that will have people turning to the Taliban as a primary tool for driving us out of their country.

Another frequent recipient is Paul Ryan, a young Wisconsin congressman and Gingrich protégé known for burrowing into budget issues. Ryan told me he was opening presents with his children on Christmas when his BlackBerry buzzed with a question about the tax code. “He’s a total idea factory,” Ryan said. “The man will have 10 ideas in an hour. Six of them will be brilliant, two of them are in the stratosphere and two of them I’ll just flat-out disagree with. And then you’ll get 10 more ideas in the next hour.”

Got that? A man so out of step with normality that he is pestering colleagues with nonsense on Christmas Day.

Not pretty.

Why? What is Dennis Hastert doing, does anyone care? Gingrich was Speaker for a pathetically short period of 4 years, Hastert for 8. Tom Foley was speaker for nearly 6, why is there not news about what he says? Gingrich only gets exposure because he keeps pretending he will run for President, but he never will.

Olkskool, damn right. The Bush’s administration of the war in Afghanistan was downright obscene, borderline treasonous. Imagine after Pearl Harbor we made some half hearted effort to confront the axis, but instead invaded Argentina. This myth of Afghan invincibility these Republicans believe in is crackpot. We let Osama waltz out of Afghanistan because Rumsfeld wanted to show how to win a war without soldiers. Rumsfeld then proceeded to royally screw up Iraq, only after the Democrats took Congress that Bush finally faced reality and dumped that pathetic egoist and brought in professionals.

As to Afghanistan, LFC is right, we don’t need to rebuild the country or turn it into Switzerland, we need only prevent the Taliban and Al Qaeda from retaking the country. Lets not forget the Pashtun Taliban represent only a small portion of the population, the remaining minorities are not part of that group. Most of the fighting and dying we endure is in the Pashtun south. I wish we would risk arming the other minorities, but I understand the reluctance of Generals to have armies not under their own control.

That’s crazy talk. Iraq was about many nonsensical things but chasing al-queada wasn’t one of them. I’m talking about reality. As a matter of talking points, sure; 911, wmd, they were going to nuke us, yellowcake, aluminum cylinders, mobile something-or-another weapons, etc.

Matter of fact, if we had not invaded Iraq, Afghanistan would likely be over and done with. We had everything going for us when the Bush genuises moved on to greener pastures.