Exit Wound: Afghanistan

This has been a debacle twenty years in the making, and now it is coming home to roost.  And none of it will matter and nothing will change.  As we speak, the State Department is privatizing their little war by replacing troops with contractors.  In the midst of this pullout, now there is a call for three THOUSAND troops to surge INTO the place just to evacuate people who should have been gone months ago.  We cannot even get far enough away to avoid the stench before we are called back.

I supported Biden’s pullout because it’s the right thing to do.  Certainly I should say this — I’ve been saying it for years.

Why the State Department is still in Kabul, or anywhere for that matter, is beyond me.  If ever there was an entire government body that could be replaced by e-mail, it is them.  Diplomats.  PAH!

I comfort myself with the idea that bad headlines coming from Afghanistan are the price we pay for leaving after having lingered to no good purpose for so long.  I tell myself that ripping this band-aid off means that we won’t have to see these headlines scraping along for another decade.  But I don’t believe it.

We can’t even get closure in a bad way.  it will just drag on and on, and long after “the last combat troop” has strapped in for the last flight home, we will still be in Afghanistan.  When do we “transition to stability operations” or whatever the new euphemism is?  Special Forces will never be relieved of this burden, any more than the FISA courts will stop eavesdropping on Americans, nor “papers please” security theater be rolled back.  Nor any of the rest of it.

Anyway, the crimes are covered up, the valiant are dishonored and blamed, and the next generation will be forced to fight the wars, pay the debts, pick up the pieces.  Welcome to the collapse, in Afghanistan as it is in Washington.

Amen.