Smoking Crack in Afghanistan

The Pentagon wants to buy 10,000 "blast-proof" trucks for use in Afghanistan. The trucks have to be smaller and lighter than an MRAP,just as blast-resistant, capable of off-road operation, and they want them by last Tuesday.

I suspect somebody is seriously smoking hash and, at times like this, I really miss Lurch at Main & Central. He'd have been all over this.

I'm not a vehicle expert, but I've seen stories that explained that any blast-resistant vehicle has to have a minimum ground clearance of three feet in order to stand a chance of surviving a mine blast. High ground clearance means lessened stability. You can only lighten armor so much before it becomes ineffective, which is why a standard cop-type vest can be defeated by a Tokarev or a rifle round.

But even if the DoD gets those armored trucks, there is no thought as to how they are going to get there or how the additional troops will be supplied. I doubt very much if we can supply over 100,000 troops long-term by air cargo alone.

We had a window of opportunity to at least stand a chance of stabilizing Afghanistan. That window was slammed shut by the Bush Administration, which took the resources needed to secure Afghanistan and poured them into Iraq. Because of the criminal neglect of the Afghan War by George W. Bush, the Taliban now arguably control much of the country, they control much of the bordering provinces in Pakistan and it is possible that the Taliban may end up with both countries.

The Taliban was able to establish itself in Afghanistan because of the official policy of "benign neglect" established by President George H.W. Bush, so there is a weird bit of symmetry in that father and son managed to lose the same nation to the Taliban.

Only the consequences this time around appear to be ever so much more severe.