this reveals an incompetence that's almost beyond imagination.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

it could not be more obvious that we are not going to do anything like win in afghanistan. what i really, really do not understand is how in the conversation they must have every day in the white house, state, defense etc they come back to karzai. propping up karzai is beyond non-promising. and yet they keep not doing anything about it. would it shock you to find out that the impostor has connections back to karzai? i think the strategy is to milk the occupation for every possible cent before absconding. honestly if it can't develop an alternative plan, the usa might just as well surrender unconditionally now and get it over with. soon we'll be lifting karzai's brothers off the roof of the u.s. embassy in kabul and evacuating them to their private caribbean islands. on the other hand perhaps if we spend another twenty years dealing with the shame of defeat we'll end up a little less aggressive, arrogant, and stupid.