We seem to be having some problems in Afghanistan. Mr Cheney flew in there yesterday, and immediately after his arrival an Afghani set off a large truck bomb inside the outer gate of Bagram Airbase, supposedly our most secure outpost in that war-torn and ignored country, killing at least 23 people, including an American soldier and an American contractor, along with a South Korean soldier. The good news of course, is that Mr Cheney wasn’t injured, as he was reportedly more than a mile away from the attack point. The bad news is that Bagram is supposed to be our most secure location in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — The audacity of a suicide-bomb attack on Tuesday at the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney underscores why President Bush sent him there — a deepening American concern that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent.

American officials insisted that the importance of the attack, by a single suicide bomber who blew himself up a mile away from where the vice president was staying, was primarily symbolic. It was more successful at grabbing headlines and filling television screens with a scene of carnage than at getting anywhere near Mr. Cheney.
But the strike nonetheless demonstrated that Al Qaeda and the Taliban appear stronger and more emboldened in the region than at any time since the American invasion of the country five years ago, and since the Bush administration claimed to have decimated much of their middle management. And it fed directly into the debate over who is to blame.

The leaders with whom Mr. Cheney met on his mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan have appeared increasingly incapable of controlling the chaos, and have pointed fingers at one another.

It’s distressing, but hardly surprising, that our broken, bought-and-paid-for media focused solely upon the fact that this attack occurred while Big Dick was in-country, and not upon the circumstances surrounding the attack. Right after the explosion, the USG, sensing a great PR opportunity, announced that – heavens be praised! – Mr Cheney was quite safe. In the time it takes to dream up a press release, the Taliban and al-Qaeda announced that he was the intended target. This was dutifully repeated by the media without bothering their blown-dried heads to wonder how they knew he was arriving.

Mr Cheney does like his secrecy, so it’s quite likely almost no one in-country knew he was coming, and yet somehow the Taliban learned of the fact? This possibility speaks of a very thorough penetration of the inner circle of the Afghan government. Implications:

We’re losing in Afghanistan.

The second possibility is that the Taliban is so strong and resurgent as a result of the failed foreign policy of the Bu$h maladministration that this enemy – the real enemy - has been reinvigorated to the point that they have developed a sophisticated press shop and can respond in real time to events and produce believable narratives as needed. Implications:

We’re losing in Afghanistan.

Mr Cheney’s response to these events was the standard boilerplate Cheney spin fertilizer:

Mr. Cheney said the attack was a reminder that terrorists seek “to question the authority of the central government,” and argued that it underscored the need for a renewed American effort.

Mr Cheney did not explain what renewed effort he had in mind. A cynical man would presume it did not involve drafting the thousands of Young Republicans who are patriotically dedicated to fighting the “war of words” here in the US rather than fighting the “war on terror” over there.