Quick Hits

I’m sick and don’t feel much like writing, but here are some interesting articles for your perusal:

Ted Stevens is on trial and it sounds like he’s just as delightful a witness as he is a senator.

This article in the New York Times lays out exactly why our current foreign policy of force projection and democracy promotion by force is so badly misguided. Even in a country that was badly in need of regime change, like Afghanistan, having a dozen children killed by an occupying army, you simply can’t win. Get this in order or get out now. And, of course, almost as a bonus for anyone looking, this continues to make Palin look like a fool.

PW beat me to it, but Colin Powell (along with just about every newspaper in America) endorsement of Barack Obama seems significant. It’s surprising to me the degree to which Obama is the adult choice in this election. There really isn’t a doubt.

And of course, Obama raises one hundred and fifty million dollars in September alone. That’s just unbelievable. The average donation size was $86. This is an unusual election cycle in so many ways.

Wheroin

The BBC has a fascinating report on the disappearance of huge quantities of heroin in the wilds of Afghanistan. One of the aspects of the “war on terror” that has often gone unremarked upon is the degree to which the “success” of rebuilding Afghanistan depends upon growing huge quantities of poppies for the production of heroin. The drugs that they’re making are being funneled into Western Europe and the United States. What’s really interesting about the situation is that Afghanistan is currently producing almost three times as much opium as needed to satisfy the world’s known demand for heroin – but the streets of the Western world aren’t being flooded with unheard of amounts of heroin. Why?

The article quotes speculation that the heroin is being stockpiled inside Afghanistan for distribution into new markets – Russia, Iran and China – that are unwilling to admit to the size of their heroin problem. It underscores the degree to which terrorism is just one subset of a much larger and more interdependent series of world crime problems. You can’t deal with terrorism and drugs as separate issues – this whole underground world is linked together.