The "clearer" matters in Afghanistan are made, the more hopeless the confusion seems

Maybe Roz Chast's Idiotman couldn't explain what the
deal is in Afghanistan, but I bet he could help us not care.

"In other post-bin Laden news, the White House said that they were 'no longer concerned' about the American people being grossed out by images of Osama bin Laden: 'After all, they've been looking at Trump for weeks.'"

-- The Borowitz Report

by Ken

Am I the only who's finding that the more that details of Seal Team Six's recent visit to Abbottabad is clarified (see, for example, "White House Corrects Big Laden Narrative"" -- oh darn, did I unthinkingly waste another of my free NYT hits on this?), the more confused I am? You understand how in the heat of the moment the initial reports can contain some incomplete or even incorrect reporting, but you also wonder how it is, given the apparent level of secrecy involved in the raid, how so much now apparent arrant nonsense was passed on. Is it any wonder I turn to Andy Borowitz for my, er, facts?

New Petition Favors Replacing Congress with SEAL Team Six

Elite Unit Gets Post-bin Laden Bounce

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In a startling measurement of public opinion since the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden, Americans in record numbers are signing a petition to replace Congress with SEAL Team Six, the elite unit that took out the al-Qaeda madman.

The petition echoes the results of a new poll by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, in which the Navy SEALS trounce Congress by a lopsided 97% to 2% margin, with the remaining 1% answering, "Superman."

Professor Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota said that the numbers behind the numbers were even more striking: "By a wide margin, Americans favor SEAL Team Six landing on the Capitol building with helicopters and taking out Congress by force."

Added Professor Logsdon, "There's a broad consensus out there that the Navy SEALs get things done, and that they would make C-Span more fun to watch."

News of the petition and the survey caught the attention of Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who issued a strongly worded denial of rumors that SEAL Team Six were practicing maneuvers on a life-size replica of the Capitol building constructed inside an abandoned Linen 'n' Things in suburban Virginia.

In other post-bin Laden news, the White House said that they were "no longer concerned" about the American people being grossed out by images of Osama bin Laden: "After all, they've been looking at Trump for weeks."

Elsewhere, in reporting on Bin Laden’s death, Fox News apologized for mispronouncing Barack Obama’s name as “George W. Bush.”

Meanwhile, I read stuff like this washingtonpost.com "Politics News Alert" and scratch my head:

The number of Americans who see success ahead in Afghanistan has spiked higher as a result of the death of Osama bin Laden, but few see it as the end to the terrorism threat facing the United States, according to a new poll by The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center.

Nearly seven in 10 see the U.S.’s killing of bin Laden as a boost to the long-term security of the country, but barely one in five see it as a big help. Just 5 percent see Osama’s death as meaning the end to the terrorism threat in general; 85 percent see further military actions as necessary.

At the same time, there’s been a large increase in the number seeing success for the U.S. in achieving its goals in Afghanistan. In the new poll, 64 percent expect success, up from 49 percent in a December poll. But this shift — corresponding with the President Obama's improved ratings on handling the situation in Afghanistan — has not led to a public reevaluation of the need for U.S. troops there. Some 48 percent of Americans say U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan “as soon as possible,” virtually the same as the 50 percent who said so a month ago.

In other words, the offing of Osama is an event of such significance that it will bring about an end to our military involvement in Afghanistan, or possibly cause it to be redoubled. I don't see any evidence, by the way, that those pollsters asked their respondents whether they know what we're doing there, as a useful standard for measuring how well we're doing it.

There has, of course, been voluminous chatter about the implications of these developments for our policy in Afghanistan and for the 2012 presidential race, but in the public chatter hardly any conversation about what our policy in Afghanistan actually is and what the substantive stakes are for the 2012 election. (By the way, just to be clear, I mean these as actual questions. Unlike my colleagues on the Left, I have no clarity whatsoever on, for example, what we should do in Afghanistan. I'm pretty suspicious of people who are so certain. But I do think that the people who are making policy ought to be able to explain it.)

Of course it's understandable why the Washington Post wouldn't have any interest in going there. It's not as if the paper had any stake in finding out and informing readers what the people in charge and the people who disagree with them think we're doing, or ought to be doing, there. No, they're just manning the windows at the betting windows, keeping track of the odds on what people think about what's happening, or what they think is happening, in Afghanistan or the presidential race.

"OBAMA BIN LADEN DEAD" (leave it to Fox)

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