Karzai Legalizes Rape in Afghanistan?

From ThinkProgress, here's what you're not reading in your local paper about Afghanistan today.

The Telegraph has more.

Disconnect? What Disconnect?

John McCain on the campaign trail:

“I was the only one, the only candidate for president of the United States on either side” who fought to change course by providing more troops, he told voters in Iowa this week.

“I did everything in my power to try and change that strategy,” he said, referring to the course originally set by President Bush. “I was severely criticized by other Republicans for being disloyal. I said we had to have the strategy we are using now.”

Meanwhile:

Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made 2007 the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

[snip]

The six deaths brings the total number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 101, according to a count by the AP. That makes this year the deadliest for Americans here since the 2001 invasion, a war initially launched to oust Taliban and al-Qaida fighters after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, but one that has evolved into an increasingly bloody counterinsurgency campaign.

The death toll mirrors the situation in Iraq, where U.S. military deaths this month surpassed 850 [on the year], a record high since the 2003 invasion there.

Emphasis mine. Baghdad may be slightly better off for the increased troop presence, but the rest of Iraq has long since spiraled out of control, the US is arming every side of the conflict, northern Iraq, previously the most stable area of the region, seems poised to deteriorate into instability amid the Turkish/Kurdish conflict, and the Taliban continues to prove resurgent in Afghanistan. Plus the opium trade is back up. McCain sounds as out of it and politically toxic as Joe Lieberman.

Losing the Opium War

From The New York Times:

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan grew by 17 percent in 2007, reaching record levels for the second straight year, according to a United Nations report released Monday.

Despite a $600 million American counternarcotics effort and an increase in the number of poppy-free provinces to 13 from 6, the report found that the amount of land in Afghanistan used for opium production is now larger than amount of land used for coca cultivation in all of Latin America.

In Helmand Province, which produces more opium than any other country in the world, there are now 7,000 British NATO troops, the largest concentration of foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Helmand had a 48 percent increase in opium production in 2007, the report said. The province, which is twice the size of Maryland, produced 53 percent of Afghanistan’s opium this year, up from roughly 42 percent last year.

The northeastern province of Nangrahar, which had reduced cultivation in recent years, experienced a 285 percent increase in opium cultivation in 2007, the report found. The Southwestern province of Farah, the scene of increased Taliban activity, experienced a 93 percent increase.

Emphasis mine. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the nature of the relationship between opium profits and increased Taliban activity? I don't like to say "mark my words," but seriously: Afghanistan will come back to haunt us. Chalk another one up to the Bush legacy.