The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Barth's picture

    How long will this war last?

    By Barth on Wed, 06/30/2010 - 3:19pm |
    We interrupt our work imposed radio silence to bring you this special bulletin from Sunday's Meet the Press. While all its guests, as usual, read their scripts and say exactly what you would expect them to say given who they are and what political or other stripe they wear, it was Tom Ricks, the quite well respected former military affairs correspondent for the Washington Post, and before that, the Wall Street Journal, and the author of the two best books on the Iraq war that there are, Fiasco and The Gamble who just cut through the noise, when given the usual seconds to explain to David Gregory how the war in Afghanistan will end:

    MR. GREGORY: Twenty seconds, Tom. How does it end?

    MR. RICKS: I don't think it does. I think we have landed in the middle of the Middle East, for better or worse, in a way that none of us expected us to. I think the war in Afghanistan was made much worse by the distracting war in Iraq, which never should have happened. But we are dealing with phenomena in the Middle East that's going to be crucial to this country as long as we're dependent on Middle East oil. So the best exit strategy I can think of is emphasize alternative fuels.

    Offscreen Voice #1: Hear, hear.

    Offscreen Voice #2: Amen.