Robert Kaplan, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, seems to think success in Afghanistan will only lead to failure, and also seems to be uncomfortable with the American military being left unsupervised by their political betters. Someone once described the British Empire as being assembled in a fit of absent-mindedness. It looks like the American Empire is being assembled in much the same way, further disturbing Kaplan, who seems to think, or so it would appear, that we are children playing at empire.

 

 

Where did I put my tinkertoy

Who took my ball and glove

Children don’t build they just destroy

Raining death from above

People like Kaplan love to fret

Success just leads to ill

It seems good news he’s never met

I doubt he ever will

Who is the Kipling of today

That mildish, childish man

Who wrote of dawn and Mandalay

And the lure of far Afghan

Historians of far off years

Will look at us with awe

And say we wrestled with our fears

And gave the lawless law