Notes from the Land War in Asia

These guys are pikers compared to Wall Street. Perhaps we ought to send the best and the brightest from Wall Street to the bazaars of Ghazni .

“…American and Afghan officers who cite some examples: police officials who steal truckloads of gasoline; judges and prosecutors who make decisions based on bribes; high-ranking government officials who reap payoffs from hashish and chromite smuggling; and midlevel security and political jobs that are sold, sometimes for more than $50,000, money the buyers then recoup through still more bribes and theft.”

But the peasants know where to go.

“People have no choice but to go to the Taliban to solve their problems.”

“Residents take complaints to local Taliban leaders, not the police, he said. “They have a judge and prosecutor.”

And resolution is swift and certain.

“They burned the three men and chopped their limbs off with axes,” he said. “

From Kipling:

“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.”

Read the article, courtesy of the New York Times: