Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right

NYT Discovers Corruption in Afghanistan.  Yes, I, too, am shocked.  I kind of miss the stories of billions being wasted in Iraq.  Wasting millions in Afghanistan seems quaint after years of much larger hunks of cash sunk to Iraq.  Now, I don't want to say that the money wasted in Afghanistan due to the corruption challenge is not a problem.  I just want to put it in perspective.  Iraq has been much, much, much costlier to Americans in terms of blood shed, in terms of $$ wasted, in terms of lost political capital, and in terms of diminished values.  And perhaps, just perhaps, Iraq also cost us time.  That by distracting the US from Afghanistan, we lost years and also leverage that might have enabled the effort in Afghanistan to be more successful.

Of course, this does not entirely excuse the US from making lots of bad choices in Afghanistan.  I just wanted to put the latest "news" into perspective.  We know that corruption is a huge problem in Afghanistan, but we face fewer options because we started so late in the game.  Of course, we can forget about the roads and just focus on President Karzai's family if we want to be sufficiently depressed.

Time to enjoy the spring day and do yard work--which I hate--but will take my mind off of the money wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan.