Fun With Maps
Matthew Yglesias has some irresistible snark on that fictional border between Iraq and Pakistan.
Domenico Montanaro explains that McCain “probably meant to say the Afghanistan-Pakistan border as they were talking about Afghanistan and there is no Iraq-Pakistan border. ” Montanaro also passes on the Republican defense to McCain’s many flubs:
Republicans have pointed out Obama telling CBS he’d be dealing with Maliki for the next eight to 10 years. They have snarkily said apparently Obama wants to change the Constitution because the most a president can serve is eight years. If Obama were to serve two terms, that would be about eight-and-a-half years from now. Republicans also point out that it’s been 925 days since Obama has been to Iraq, but McCain has been there eight times.
And he still doesn’t know which countries border Iraq.
Do You Have To Know Geography To Be Good at Foreign Policy?
So far, Barack Obama has not made any faux pas in his trip to Afghanistan and Iraq — but John McCain has:
… In a verbal flub that will spark renewed recollections of his Shiite/Sunni miscue earlier this year while he was visiting the Middle East, he erroneously reconfigured the map of the world.
Asked on ABC about the uptick in violence by Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, he replied: “We have a lot of work to do and I’m afraid it’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.”
Iraq borders several nations, but Pakistan is not among them — looming between the two is Iran. (Pakistan’s neighbors, however, include Afghanistan).
Steve Benen has the video.
More Regrettable Loss of Innocent Life
Once again, scores of civilians are dead because of a U.S. air strike:
Maybe Those Taliban Fighters Should Send a Thank You Note to Pres. Bush
Three days after about 400 Taliban fighters were sprung from Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, eight villages near that city are back under Taliban control.
Alex Thurston has more.
The United States Does Not Torture
And if you believe that, you probably know better than to read about the experiences of detainees held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan:
Taliban Free Almost 1,000 in Massive Prison Break in Kandahar
If there was any doubt that the Taliban have been making a comeback, the spectacular prison break at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar should put them to rest:
You Keep Using That Word…
The NY Times reports today that, after some delay while US officials tried to, as reported this past January in the NYT, ““transition out” of the Bagram detention center”, the US will be building a new all-but-permanent detention facility in Afghanistan:
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