Lots to catch up on.

A little less than a thousand people came through the training location I was at today, but there was really no news: the speakers played musak, not the radio, and the patrons weren’t talking about it, to me or to each other, so I had much to catch up on this afternoon.

Randy and I talked for a while last night about the logistic difficulties of (hypothetically) attacking Afghanistan, especially when the only country (apparently) likely to be helpful is Russia.

There’s some indication that it won’t be a logistics nightmare:

Pakistan is one of the key countries from which the U.S. is demanding assistance; it is one of only three countries that have formal relations with the Taliban. Thus far, reaction from Pakistan’s leadership has been supportive.

This might be because Pakistan is being given a clear “You’re either with us or against us.” message, but frankly, I couldn’t give less of a damn about the reasons, as long as they play ball.

Will Russia help? How about this: will Iran help? Sounds silly? Check this out — officials from Russia, India, and Iran met in Tajikistan to discuss backing anti-Taliban forces within Afghanistan (that would be the Iran that’s bragged about shooting down several unmanned U.S. spy planes in recent weeks). Saudi has already declared they will assist. The world has decided this is not a cause it is healthy to oppose.

This is all good news for the inevitable military action: hard to reach areas mean more land troops involved earlier, and countries like Afghanistan are some the most inhospitable bits of terrain on the planet. Anything that makes bombing runs and missile strikes easier is better for U.S. troops.

This is important, because it’s obvious that officials are going to great lengths to get us used to idea of going to war. How many times has that particular word been used in the past few days? The Deputy Defense Secretary said today: “One thing that is clear is you don’t do it with just a single military strike, no matter how dramatic.“.

It’s acclimation: put a frog in a pan of water and keep slowly increasing the temperature until, before he knows it, he’s at war.