Charlie Wilson's War, or, Chain of Fools

No. The enemy of our enemy is NOT our friend. He is our enemy's enemy, and we use his enmity at our peril. Like a double-bitted axe, we cannot be sure where his whetted edge will come to rest, and it may well be in our own neck.

And to forget this, even for a moment, is to make ourselves fools in a world where the only truly capital crime is stupidity.

"It is time U.S. foreign policy took a more realistic view of the world and stop assuming political necessity must yield strange bedfellows. This would enable our military to get back into the business of protecting our nation from existential threats to our security and winning our nation’s wars; not waste blood and treasure in misadventures in nation building or securing non vital national interests. Finally, it is interesting to note that the reason the Soviets intervened militarily in Afghanistan in 1979 is the exact same reason we are intervening now: to secure the sitting government from Islamic insurgents."

Go, read it. It will make you laugh, or weep, or both. Hunter Thompson said "No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."

We're now paying for the fact that Charlie Wilson taught himself everything he knew about Afghanistan.

(Cross-posted to MilPub)