Ya's News! 5/11/09

(This column is written by Owen Murphy, whom you might remember as the man who penned the Shit from the 90's column on the dancing flowers. Before we get to his new current events feature, "Ya's News", I'd like to announce that a small dog, not unlike Lassie, was just run over on the street in front of my house. And now, Ya's News!)

Ya’s News!: Pakistan/Afghanistan/Taliban, Sarah Palin, Taken!!!

Sometimes things just have a way of not adding up; figure and second take as you might, it just does not make sense. Take, for instance, the events taking place over the past week on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Out intelligence agencies determined, about a decade ago, that the Taliban had developed both residential and training facilities in the unforgiving mountainous terrain of the region. At that time, agreements between then Presidents George W. Bush and Pakistani president Perez Musharraf (Pakistan) created a cooperative protocol which stated that any U.S. attack against Taliban facilities, in Pakistani territory, would require the assistance of Pakistani Special Forces.

Of course, what we failed to realize at that time was the term “special” applied to the Pakistani forces in that they were largely disabled and idiotic, often times slowing down the U.S. Navy Seal teams that were dispatched to these remote areas, and other times the Pakistani Special Forces were not available for such strikes entirely. Needless to say, that didn’t completely dishearten the U.S., who to launch attacks using unmanned flying drones, or predators, operated remotely by CIA members from mainland U.S.A.

But I digress, the fact of the matter is that we have been in Afghanistan for the better part of a decade now, with numerous successes, most often followed by crippling setbacks. All in all, things are a lot better than before but nowhere close to perfect. Thus I have found it bewildering that over the past week Obama has expressed such confidence in our ability to protect Pakistani nuclear arms from insurgents. The last I knew, we had little knowledge as to where these weapons were even being stored; still, I welcomed this optimism with some hesitation.

Then today, based upon the history of military actions within the region, made even less sense; The Pakistani military made huge inroads into the mountainous border in a strike which is reported to have taken the lives of 200 Taliban. Even when Bush was pumping billions of economic aid into Pakistan, the greatest of their efforts seemed to extol deaths of Taliban you could measure in the dozens, which seemed fine with members of the Pakistani military, many of which were Taliban sympathizers. I am not sure what types of discussions have gone on behind closed doors between the new leaders of the countries, Obama and Asif Ali Zardari, but whatever it is must have something to do with the new open, honest, transparent diplomatic approach we’ve been taking, which of course doesn’t make sense because negotiating isn’t supposed to work.

Speaking of taking things, can the political analysts who have continued to mention Sarah Palin as a viable 2012 ticket candidate die already? As if her performance on the campaign trail wasn’t terrible enough, she has been subject to numerous embarrassments since returning to her post in Alaska. I know the public loves them their Palin headlines, but give us a little credit, national billion dollar news broadcasting companies! If you want to out right shit on her or talk about how she’s a milf, that’s all well and good, but let’s call a spade a spade.

Of course, the most important news gripping the country over the past week is Tuesday’s impending release of Taken on DVD and Blu-Ray. Fever is running especially high over this past week, as the movie has been a sponsor of numerous NBA playoff games; I don’t know about ya’ll, but I am playing it safe, I am writing to you from my tent which I have set up outside Best Buy. The movie, which is in most relevant senses complete dog shit, was far far far more entertaining than the plethora of legitimately good movies that I took in over this past winter… doesn’t make sense does it? It’s high action, gory, and largely hilarious; I can’t urge you enough to check it out.

Owen Murphy