Talk about mission creep! First Afghanistan was the "necessary war" because they harbored Al Qaeda training bases, then because the Taliban were religious extremists and, I guess, we only cotton to Christian religious extremists ...

... and finally,  because an Afghani politician talks up the importance of his country, and it sits on top of minerals.

???

A Simple Geography Lesson {NB. for North Americans}

We are here:

This is our hemisphere of the globe:

This is the Atlantic Rim:

This is the Pacific Rim:

This (YA, to the left) is Afghanistan, a landlocked nation lying on the borders between West, South and East Asia:

A campaign of retaliation in a landlocked nation in Asia, halfway around the world, just because we can ... well, the US is a Viking Country at heart, and it is not surprising that a sneak attack in a Viking settlement provokes a retaliation.

Fighting there for a decade, OTOH ... that's not an outbreak of rage, that's institutionalized insanity.

But staying there for the minerals and in hopes of benefiting from the fact that its a landlocked nation at the opposite ends of the earth from us ...

... if this is the caliber of strategic analysis that we have at the head of the CIA, we need to rename it the CSA: Central Stupidity Agency. And given that he was wearing four stars when he made these remarks, at least one of his stars should have retired separately from the general. Four star generals ought not be caught displaying such long term strategic stupidity in public.

World Beat: Akoya Afrobeat ~ Unilateral System of Attack