The face of liberation:

The most obvious example is Afghanistan, the land the Bush administration forgot. Most of the country is back under the control of fundamentalist warlords; unpaid soldiers and policemen are deserting in droves. (Remember that the Bush administration forgot to include any Afghan aid in its latest budget.)

President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, told an Associated Press reporter: "It is like I am seeing the same movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem. What was promised to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business."

Those who tell you that Afghanistan is stable and peaceful, that the bombing ended up meaning everything... they are lying to you, and innocent Afghans are paying the price. Now that the war in Iraq is perceived as being over, the key to ensure that this does not happen again is to not be distracted by saber-rattling at Iran and Syria (who, let's remember, have no U.N. sanctions aimed at them and thus would be the injured parties in the case of an invasion) and to keep on asking "what about Iraq? What about Afghanistan? What about Iraq? What about Afghanistan?" over and over and over again. Not just in a few weeks. Not just in a few months. Not even just this year. Every chance possible from now until election day. If Iraq and Afghanistan aren't exactly what was promised, if innocent Iraqis and Afghans die because the neocons are too busy conquering to roll up their sleeves and rebuild, then the blame will lie at least partially on those who did not have the courage to stand up and ask the questions.

At this point, WMDs aren't an issue- the Bushites justified this war solely on humanitarian grounds. Fine. If that's the position they want to take, then they should be held to it. If they don't live up to their promises, then they should be as hounded as Clinton was. More so- as he lied about sex, and they lied about death. If they do live up to their promises, then they will have demonstrated that the American Empire will be just and moral.

If they want to discard the rules that have undergirded the international system for hundreds of years, then they should be held responsible for it. All of it.