"A sharp sense of the ironic can be the equivalent of the faith that moves mountains."  - Moss Hart, Act One (1959)

The stunning hollowness of political rhetoric during America’s electoral season was on vulgar display during the Presidential Debates. John McCain and Barak Obama engaged, not once but thrice, in what the media hailed in advance as a deadly war of words. Television viewers soon realised the winner would be the one who could mouth the most arrant nonsense in the allotted two-minute time-frames of the debate format. [The instant polls, courtesy CNN, breathlessly pronounced Obama the winner, reminding one of that historic ‘fiddle’ by Nero in Rome.]

The imbecility of the verbal ‘fiddling’ is best judged in the backdrop of the unfolding real-life disaster: the US-made ‘Global Economic Express to Nowhere’ began skidding at full throttle, prompting the panicky co-drivers, Bernancke and Paulson, to slam on an $810 Billion bailout ‘brake’, not realising the out-of-control financial behemoth had already hurtled over the edge and into the abyss, taking global stock markets with it.

The Debates were not without their moments, though. One, certainly, stood out.

In the second presidential debate, for instance, McCain attacked Obama on the surge in Iraq, recalling Barak’s claim that it could not work, that it would increase sectarian violence, and was doomed to failure, then added, "Recently on a television program, he [Obama] said it exceeded our wildest expectations. . ."

Barak’s riposte was a knockout: "John, you pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong. And so. . . if the question is who is best-equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment."

[Commenting on Barack’s response, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd drew a fitting analogy: "McCain is essentially the arsonist who helps set a fire in someone’s house and then tries to take credit for keeping it under control, if not putting it out."]

That exchange helped relieve the tedium which characterized the debates. What was alarming, however, was the way in which both candidates deliberately chose to ignore the many elephants in the room, indulging instead in macho one-upmanship. They were both oblivious to one particularly enraged Taliban jumbo in Afghanistan readying to charge US forces trespassing on home soil.

There was little to choose between the two candidates when it came to extreme hawkishness on that nation. Both also ignored the reality that ten days prior to the second debate the Afghan government had begun talks with the Taliban in Mecca under the auspices of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, with all sides agreeing the on-going conflict would be settled by dialogue, not bloodshed. Also just days before the debate came the public admission by a senior British officer, General Mark Carleton-Smith, that absolute military victory over the Taliban was a pipe dream. "If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this," said the General. "That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable."

McCain and Obama were the obvious exceptions. Obama, who as the 44th Prez, promises to bring the Iraq invasion to an orderly if not immediate close, clearly isn’t planning on bringing the ‘boys’ back home - unless he’s counting Afghanistan as the 51st star on the American flag. Worse still, he’d gladly follow the newly-minted Bush warmongering against his eight-year ally, Pakistan. Obama’s mad rationale for this lunacy: "The War on Terorrism began in that region, and that’s where it will end," he told the audience. "Part of the job of the next commander-in-chief, in keeping all of you safe is making sure that we can see some of the 21st Century challenges and anticipate them before they happen." [That’s obamaspeak for preemptive military strikes.]

Anand Gopal, a superb young journalist writing regularly for the Christian Science Monitor, reminded readers that there already had been a little-publicised ‘surge’ of troops in Afghanistan sometime in early 2007 when a growing insurgency caused problems for US and NATO forces in certain pockets in the southern parts of the country, long a Taliban stronghold.

Over an 18-month period, the international presence was beefed up by 20,000, representing a 45 per cent increase in numbers.

During that ‘surge’, however, the violence also more than kept pace, jumping by 50 per cent! "This shouldn’t be surprising," reports Gopal. "More troops meant more targets for Taliban fighters and suicide bombers. In response, the international forces retaliated with massive aerial bombing campaigns and large-scale house raids. The number of civilians killed in the process skyrocketed. In the fifteen months of this surge, more civilians have been killed than in the previous four years combined."

Needless to say, Afghanistan descended into a state of utter dereliction - no jobs, very little reconstruction, and ever less security. In turn, the rising civilian death toll and the decaying economy proved a profitable recipe for the Taliban, who recruited significant numbers of new fighters. "They also won the sympathy of Afghans who saw them as the lesser of two evils. Once confined to the deep Afghan south, today the insurgents operate openly right at the doorstep of Kabul, the capital."

Gopal’s conclusion is that the previous surge, little noted by the media, failed miserably. In other words, more boots on the ground will not, and cannot, address the real causes of Afghanistan’s unfolding tragedy. He also makes a pointed observation: "The Taliban are as uninterested in social services and human rights as the Karzai government or the international forces, but they know how to turn a world of poverty, insecurity, and death from laser-guided missiles to their advantage."

Nevertheless, both candidates persist with the notion that additional brigades sent in to chase the Taliban around the mountains of southern Afghanistan would change the outcome of the war. Are they truly unaware of the reality? The answer has to be no, but that won’t stop whoever becomes President from getting more deeply bogged down in Afghanistan by ordering a far more costly surge in terms of lives and money. Why?

Tom Engelhardt answers that question thus: "Recall the Administration’s dreams only five years ago. Then, they were convinced that they would create a Pax Americana globally and a Pax Republicana domestically that would last generations." [Evidently, McCain has bought into that fiction; Obama certainly goes along with Pax Americana but, understandably, would replace the domestic objective with Pax Democratica.]

Like it or not, life brims over with ironies. The Soviet Union – remember? - was effectively bankrupted and nudged toward ultimate collapse by its Afghan War that America surreptitiously kept alive with dollars galore, creating the jihadists [read Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda] that helped hasten the USSR’s demise.

And America’s unique creation of so long ago now threatens its own survival on that very battlefield, aptly described by Robert Fisk as "Asia’s greatest military graveyard."

Grotesque irony indeed.