Exhibit A: Afghanistan

100 years ago, at the St. Louis World's Fair, event organizers put about a thousand Filipinos on display as a "living exhibit" of the spoils of victory from the Spanish-American War. Today, were there still World's Fairs, we'd have two living exhibits, though it's likely they'd be a village of Afghan heroin-growing warlords, and a bombed-out village of angry and desperate Iraqis. On Memorial Day, some disturbing news reports have made the views of these two exhibits even dimmer. Let's start with Exhibit A.

First, Robert Novak dares to tell the truth about Afghanistan (a rarity for him) in today's Chicago Sun-Times. Ever since Iraq became foreign policy preoccupation number one, Afghanistan has been tragically neglected (you remember that President Bush did not allocate one dollar for Afghan assistance in his 2003 budget). Predictably, that has spun the country into a nightmare of brutal warlord control, corrupt official government, and suffering for ordinary citizens. As soon as I heard that under the Taliban, Afghan women could not become doctors, and could not seek treatment from a male doctor (certainly one of the most creative instances of racism since the Jim Crow law that you could only vote if your grandfather voted, ruling out any black person, all of whose grandfathers were not permitted to vote), I believed it would be necessary to liberate Afghanistan from such cruelty and abuse. But we did nothing more than appoint Hamid Karzai, who I think controls the area directly within reach of his arm. Meanwhile, instead of crushing a terrorist outpost, we added a new leader in the drug trade, with heroin production at an all-time high, and US forces, most of whom are confined to Kabul proper, unable to do anything about it. Novak tells us we have less than 100 men doing battle against narco-terrorists, whose profits from drugs are funding their revival. Most of our boys are doing Karl Rove's work:

More important than this conventional infantry division are two commando units known as Black SOF (Special Operations Forces) and White SOF. Black SOF, by far the more numerous of the two, is assigned to capture Osama bin Laden. Nothing would do more to boost President Bush's sagging popularity than getting the designer of the 9/11 attacks.

The problem is that nobody I have talked to in the military thinks his capture is likely or may even be possible. The American fighting men think ''UBL'' (as he is called) is hiding in Pakistan, impossible to find. Most exasperating to the men in the field is the manpower and effort expended on what they consider to be a helpless cause.

Our entire role in Afghanistan now is designed to "get bin Laden." Yet the forces engaged in that hunt believe that he's not even there. Meanwhile, the Taliban (or at least a group of fundamentalist Islamic strongmen) is this close to retaking the country, and control 90% of its land. I should mention at this point that Afghanistan is considered to be George Bush's "victory," compared to Iraq. But until we redistribute forces there to meet the needs of the people, and concern ourselves with infrastructure improvements rather than snipe hunts for hidden individual terrorists, we'll achieve nothing more than hollow victory, and inevitable failure. Karzai is so weak and corrupt, and has so little repsect in the country, that only actual elections (not appointments) can broaden the power of the government. Patridiots reports that Karzai is promising warlords cabinet positions if they back him, which is completely antithetical to the process. Once again, we have used political expediency and ceded power to strongmen because they can wield it easily. I don't know how you turn that around outside of full-scale war. Afghanistan is maddeningly complex, with little hope for progress thanks to its persistent neglect over the last couple years.

Later today we'll take a look at Exhibit B.