THANK ALLAH FOR PAKISTAN

I have an old acquaintance from my comics fandom days, Kevin McConnell, who works for the military. He knows people in Afghanistan, and was kind enough to forward an account from his friend about what's Really Going On there.

While I would disagree with his friend's assessment of Bush and Kerry (he agrees with an Afghani translator who describes Kerry as a "woman"), he directed Kevin (and therefore, me) to this article on why some Muslims hate Osama bin Laden, too.

The thing is, I don't think there are many people here in the US who will vote for Kerry who are opposed to the action in Afghanistan. I believe Bush made a mistake that let bin Laden get away at Tora Bora, portable dialysis machine and all. But mostly I believe that Bush was so hot to trot to revenge his father against Saddam Hussein that he got us into Iraq before it was prudent. Hence, we don't have the armies of rejoicing Iraqis that we probably should.

That said, as someone whose spouse used to work in the World Trade Center before we moved in 1989, let me say that everybody involved needs to be brought to justice, that eliminating the threat of crazy, misguided people is our nation's highest national security priority... and that George W. Bush couldn't win a game of Risk against any of Osama bin Laden's grandchildren.

Tuesday still scares me.