Myths About Unwinnable Afghanistan

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: "Afghanistan today is not simply the product of a population that can't keep its hands out of the cookie jar; instead, it is a man-made disaster created by the international community's short-sighted policies that focused on standing up long-discredited strongmen mistrusted by their own people. . . ."

Gayle will now be denounced as a "warmonger" in five seconds, four seconds, three, two. . .

Comrade Lauryn Oates blazed this trail with her Afghanistan myth-busting series: one, two, three, four (a Melissa Roddy pinch-hit) and five, that last instalment being an especially necessary antidote to the lurid racism that informs so much of the "anti-war" polemics abroad these days. For her trouble, Lauryn earned not only a red "warmonger" star but also a "white supremacist" medal. By the way: Did I mention it isn't all about oil? Sorry, kids. No Santa Claus, no oil either.

But I've got these sisters beat. I can boast having been not only celebrated by stoppists as a "warmonger" and a "racist," but promoted to a full blown Left-Gatekeeper to the Ziocon Hegemony. My chest is so heavy with medals I can barely stand up for the weight of them.