Good-enough governance

At his hearings to be ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker admitted that “We’re not out to clearly create a shining city on a hill. That’s not going to happen.” So what is his definition of success? “Good-enough governance: Governance that is good enough to ensure that the country doesn’t degenerate back into a safe haven for al-Qaeda.”

The handful of Al Qaida who enjoyed safe haven in Afghanistan didn’t do any particular harm to the Afghan people, so Crocker is suggesting that the Afghans are basically irrelevant to the purpose of the war in Afghanistan, as far as the US is concerned. “Good enough for wogs,” he might as well have said.

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NYT headline: “U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes.” I’m pretty sure the Yemenis realize they’re being bombed, so this is no more a secret campaign than the “secret” bombing of Cambodia.

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Liberty County (TX) Sheriff Capt. Rex Evans says that just because the tip that there were dozens of bodies buried on a farm came from a “psychic” did not make it any less valid. Er, yes it did.