Excerpts: As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

The airstrikes appear to have increased in recent days as the United States and its allies have launched counteroffensives against the Taliban in the south and southeast, strafing and bombing a stronghold in Uruzgan province and pounding an area near Khost with 500-pound bombs.

U.S. officials say the activity is a response to an increasingly aggressive Taliban, whose leaders realize that long-term trends are against them as the power of the Afghan central government grows.

"I think the Taliban realize they have a window to act," Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, commander of the 22,000 U.S. troops in the country, said in a recent interview. "The enemy is working against a window that he knows is closing."

They really are one-trick ponies, these guys. Anytime one of their wars goes wrong – the enemy grows stronger, more civilians die – they claim it's the "last throes," desperation, one last wild toss of the dice, etc. The worse things get, the better they're about to get; this has been the constant refrain throughout the Iraq fiasco, and, as Afghanistan – the forgotten but uncompleted war – heats up further, we'll hear it again and again from there as well. – And of course, if any of their wars ease up – there's a lull in the chaos and bloodshed, a big honcho (real or hyped) is captured or killed, some cosmetic political "milestone" is reached – then that too means that everything is getting better. No matter what happens – more fighting, less fighting; more chaos, less chaos – every day and every way things are getting better and better.

And as always, we in the sentient world are left wondering: what lies behind these fantasies spun in public by the Bush Gang and its military minions? Is it pure cynicism? Pure idiocy? Some gooey mixture of both? Whatever it is, it sure ain't intelligent statecraft or responsible military leadership. It's death-dealing crap, and our children and grandchildren will still be paying for it decades down the line.

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