Our occupation is a piece of such breathtakingly cynical political calculation that only a few on site or expert in Afghani affairs have been able to recognize the scale of audacity with which this sorry war has been confected. We lavish very near the amount of treasure on this faux-war that we would on a real one, which enriches those for whom riches are intended, while our casualties never amount to such a number as would over-alarm the electorate.

And lately, our use of predator drones has increased our footprint in the region, while demanding no new sets of boots on the ground. The fact that so often the drones kill innocents our leadership imagines they can make up for via unfelt apologies in officialeze, but nobody’s buying that crap on the ground. And when we kill those at whom we’ve been aiming, we do so without necessity of trial. We will soon be driven out by those we have taught to hate us– and for good reason.

I love the idea of going to places that we don’t understand, we don’t know and, as Dalrymple says, attempting to see beneath the surface: to “strip off the very thin veneer of globalization which hides a multitude of attitudes” (so well put).

I agree that the lesson of 9/11 is that we don’t understand the world. By making it, and allowing it to continue to be, a “war on terror”, we, as a country, especially those in leadership positions, seem to have lost an opportunity to understand more about that which we don’t know, or postponed it while in our ignorance and naiveté we harm and destroy.

It’s an interesting thought: swapping Holbrooke and Mitchell assignments. The real horror, regardless, is that we continue on in this war knowing full well, as even Michael Steele knows, as Obama must know and probably did know when he made his surge decision, that there is no winning, that there will be those that die for and from this while in the name of security and freedom we are actually doing ourselves more harm.

Dalrymple maybe feels that there is little we can do and that first we are responsible for our own awareness, that we can through our work and encounters try to effect, enlighten, inform.

About the Jains I always think of them when I see a spider an ant or a mosquito. I relocated two toads in harms way today.

Thank you for this bounty. Best wishes to you on your travels Chris. Be safe, joyful and stay cool.

This interview only solidifies the fact that the United States of America is a fools paradise.