Partisan snark is such fun...

Get a load of this headline from Josh Marshall:

New Brand Kinda Like The Old Brand
Mitt Romney: "We are the party of the revolutionaries, they [Democrats] are the party of the monarchists." 
 
 
 
This remark typies the absurdity and irrelevance into which the Republicans have fallen. 
 
It's sapping my motivation to post.   It seems pointless now to do anything except try and offer well thought out critiques and defenses of  positions on real world issues.   But it's harder than pointing out Republican outrages.
 
 I'm still bogged down trying to figure out what I think should be happening in Afghanistan. 
 
Originally, I was thinking in terms of framing the issue in terms of just war theory--but justified (or not) police action would be more descriptive.  Or should be descriptive.  Unmanned drone bombs and the use of bunker buster bombs I think are counterproductive, but their use suggests conventional warfare, which the intervention in Afghanistan ultimately isn't.  It's more like Northern Ireland although parallels can't be clearly drawn.
 
As Richard N. used to say, let me be perfectly clear. The emotional impetus for my support of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is the Taliban's war against girls and women.    I should like to see the Taliban utterly destroyed as a political and social force.  It doesn't mean I think they should all be killed to the last man but I certainly think judicious force and violence against them is justified.  (For the purposes of this argument, I make no distinction between Al Queda and the Taliban). 
 
Leaving aside the use of unmanned drones & anti-personnel weapons like the bunker buster bombs, I think any criticism I have of what Obama is proposing to do is that it may not be enough, for both the military and nation-building aspects of the intervention, and that's even given the limited goal of trying to secure a stable government there with something like a rule of law that is not an outrage to civilized society. 
 
I would wish the same on the House of Saud and a dozen other places, but generally you have to pick your battles with those that have picked you. 
 
On a somehwat related note,  I saw with considerable surprise that Juan Cole refers to those who want the U.S. to leave Iraq immediately as "withdrawal fundamentalists." 
 
R.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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