Stephen Colbert absolutely destroyed the rationales offered for continuing a military escalation in Afghanistan on last night's episode of The Colbert Report:
"In the search for reasons to stay in Afghanistan, we struck gold."
Colbert was mocking the "news" that Afghanistan has vast, untapped mineral deposits. It wasn't news -- The New York Times' James Risen got taken for a ride. (And boy, did he not take it well when bloggers let him know that the joke was on him!) We've known about these mineral deposits for years, yet Risen and the Times helped drive a story conveniently timed for last-minute congressional hearings called by "shaken" Afghanistan war supporters. With the Times behind the story, Risen drove it all the way onto the cable networks, where he found Colbert and Jon Stewart waiting to mock his "news" without mercy.
Colbert was absolutely right that we are searching for reasons to stay in Afghanistan. With al-Qaida gone, with more than 1,000 Americans dead in the war, with hundreds of billions of dollars flying out the door for a war that's not making us safer, the reasons are pretty hard to find. This fake "gold and lithium" story is a lame attempt to rationalize a failing war. As Colbert reminds us, we've seen this before. Remember all that oil we discovered right at the end of the Vietnam War? Remember how much good that did us?
Me neither.
If we're going to be subjected to this kind of nonsense from the administration until the war is over, at least make Stephen Colbert Secretary of State or something. At least then, this kind of joke would be funny.
If you've had enough of this brutal, costly, useless war, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook as we organize to stop it.