The Katrina Method

Remember Afghanistan? That's the war where, supposedly, Bush had not completely and miserably failed.

However, the team that brought you Katrina, "Mission Accomplished", "Last throes", Haditha, Abu Ghraib, Medicare Part D, Social Security Privatization and Samuel Alito has been busy in Kabul, and it shows:

Many Afghans and some foreign supporters say they are losing faith in President Hamid Karzai's government, which is besieged by an escalating insurgency and endemic corruption and is unable to protect or administer large areas of the country.[...]

In markets and mosques across the country, Afghans are focusing discontent on Karzai, 48, the amiable, Western-backed leader whose landslide election in October 2004 appeared to anchor a process of political reconstruction and stability that began with the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001.

Since then, public confidence in his leadership has soured with reports of highway police robbing travelers, government jobs sold to the highest bidder, drug traffic booming and aid money vanishing. There are no public opinion polls here, but several dozen Afghan and foreign observers expressed similar views.

Since April, an aggressive Taliban offensive across the south has resulted in the deaths of 600 people. In the past four days, more than 150 insurgents have been reported killed in battles with Afghan and foreign troops in the southern provinces of Uruzgan and Kandahar.

Late last month, a riot in Kabul, in which protesters attacked foreign facilities for hours as police vanished from the streets, raised concerns among many people here that the government is too weak to protect even the capital.

"In the past year, security has gotten worse and worse," said Sayed Tamin, 42, a tailor in a working-class Kabul district who was hemming a pair of pants. "The Taliban have been able to come back because the government is weak. There is corruption in high places and nothing for the poor. People are very, very disappointed."

Repugs: if they touch something, it falls apart.