The Obama administration recently announced in triumph that Al Queada had been reduced to two grumpy guys with beards, guns, and some groupies. Two. Seriously, at this point, the Vegetarian Society of East Tennessee now has a significantly stronger leadership than Al Queda (no offense to the healthy eaters down South). But since the insatiable killing machine that drives U.S. foreign policy is, apparently, unstoppable (primarly because the people in charge -- like President Obama -- clearly have no desire to stop it), then it must, necessarily, be kept busy killing something other than Al Queda members.

So I don't know how anybody could be too surprised to learn that the U.S. forces in Afghanistan annihilated yet another family of kids on Thursday, or that the same U.S. forces destroyed two Pakistani army outposts early Saturday, killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers in the process. Really: killing is what the military is supposed to do, and when there's little or no enemy left to kill, you either start killing the innocent, or make the ridiculous claim that the innocent are the enemy when you kill them -- or both.

Neither of which does much to win us friends, favors, or influence overseas; it just fosters more hatred and generates new enemies, which we'll of course have to go kill in due course -- but since that's what the machine does best, perhaps it's all part of the plan...

(Completely unrelated and entirely irrelevant photo from The Bedlam Beat)