what the U.S. army was, once...

Never have I read of the creation of an army with such happiness as I did in this New York Times article. Excerpt:

The creation of a multiethnic, centrally commanded Afghan National Army has long been promoted by President Hamid Karzai, and his American and United Nations supporters, as the one solution to Afghanistan's endemic insecurity and powerful regional warlords. But only in the past few weeks, after months of training in Kabul, has the concept of a national force become a reality, with the deployment here first of a company of 50 men, then of two more with 173 Afghan soldiers.

This news marks at least four positive milestones:

• important step in decreasing warlords' power
• they're patrolling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, source of many problems in the area--and reputed last known whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar (we all remember them, right?)
• tangible evidence that Afghan ethnic groups are willing to work and live together
• contact in the military augurs well for the various ethnic groups to recognize their common aims

It's nice to see the actions of an army coinciding with lofty goals like security and the establishment of democracy.

link

estimations and schedules

On 1/22 (Wednesday) in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote "I think liberals under-appreciate the value of removing Saddam Hussein. ... on Sunday I will explain why conservatives under-appreciate the risks of doing so — and how we should balance the two.

Well, I haven't read Sunday's explanation yet (for the humble reason that it's Saturday as I write), but I take some umbrage (as a liberal) at the playing field Friedman offers me. I haven't heard people debating the value of removing Hussein. If I did, I would suggest that Friedman's offered eventuality of a democracy in the Middle East finds scant support in the past U.S. record of post-dictator topplings. But as I said, I haven't heard anyone discussing the value of sending Saddam packing. The questions, rather, are typically "why now" and "why us?"

And answers can be found in half the blogs of pundit-land, and heaven help us, the polls. Even the humble American man on the street seems to understand that the answer is "because W's obsessed with Hussein and will burn all his political capital to get him." Nothing will stop George, not the economy, not North Korea, not Venezuela, not the Middle East, the still-missing bin Laden and Mullah Omar and not the U.S. public opinion.

If another attack on America occurs, and ever more I fear it will, I imagine a greater number of citizens will know the answer to the question "why do they hate us?"