Boo!

In the same day, nine days before a Presidential election, the U.S. made cross-border raids into both Pakistan and Syria, nations with whom we are not at war. Karl Rove would be proud.

Any administration that was scrupulous about not injecting military action into politics would have refrained from this for a couple more weeks. But 'scrupulous' is not a word that should ever be applied to the Bushists.

By now we know that the initial reticence about the Syria raid and promises to investigate by the military were bullshit. The Bushists now defend what they previously would not admit doing.

No doubt there were bad people across each border. There were probably innocents as well.

There is even justification in crossing borders into anarchic zones such as these. But to do it in a way that appears to be for political benefit abuses the American consensus for partisan ends.

Major combat operations

... aren't even over in Afghanistan.

If one of the Democrats manages to prevent McCain from delivering four more years of Bushist misrule, Afghanistan is the place to prove Democratic national security credibility. The Taliban, after all, actually did attack us.

The problem with that, of course, is that Americans are tired of Iraq, which has been going on for five years, while the war in Afghanistan has taken six and a half. Fatigue makes a hard problem even more difficult.