Adiós and Good Riddance Afghanistan

The lesson to be learned about our ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is simple: War doesn't work. An offensive war is almost always a mistake. A war with no exit strategy is a huge mistake. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Viet Nam were all huge mistakes. Why can't our military elite understand that war doesn't work?

James Fallows wrote something in The Atlantic about the Iraq War way back in 2004 (or thereabouts), but it also applied to Afghanistan. He said we can either get out now, or years from now, and the result will be exactly the same, but one of those two options is going to cost a lot more.

 Let the Muslim nations figure it out. If the rest of the Muslim world is happy to allow these Medievalists to take over a nation, that says a lot about the current state of Islam.

 After twenty years and trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan, what we did there can't stand up for even a few weeks? Only a liar or a complete moron would think that our further involvement would change the outcome.

 This is from Fox News, a network that barely said a word about Afghanistan during Trump’s entire presidency, now, suddenly, they care because they can blame Biden for a 20-year shit-show:

 Former CIA Director and retired Army general David Petraeus called the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan "disastrous" and "catastrophic" not only for the U.S. but the world, in a Friday interview. 

 Wait for the punchline which comes in the forum where General Useless said this:

 "This is an enormous national security setback and it is on the verge of getting much worse unless we decide to take really significant action," Petraeus told host Rita Cosby on The Rita Cosby Show on WABC Radio.

 Who the is Rita Cosby? Answer: who cares? If this guy knows so much about Afghanistan, why didn’t he fix it when he had the chance and hundreds of billions of dollars to do it? It was Pertaeus's job to straighten out Afghanistan and he didn't do it, couldn't do it, and now he's going to second-guess Biden? To put it in terms a general should understand, go fuck yourself.

 It’s not just the Right dog-piling on Biden. This is from The New Yorker:

 “However much he says that he does ‘not regret’ his decision, his Presidency will be held responsible for whatever happens in Afghanistan now, and the key words that will forever be associated with the long American sojourn there will include hubris, ignorance, inevitability, betrayal, and failure.”

 First of all, where was this guy twenty years ago? Invading Afghanistan was a huge mistake, something he should have known back then, but he was too busy playing the part of war correspondent. I bet he bought a safari jacket just for the role. As I said back then, it was like Viet Nam but with a bigger cultural void to overcome. But God help you if you compared Bush's two wars to Viet Nam because the neo-cons would have blown a bowel. As it turns out, both wars were worse than Nam.

 Anyone who holds Biden responsible hasn’t paid much attention to the war, or history. How about holding GWB and the generals responsible, you know, the guys who gave us this war?

The Cost of the War in Afghanistan in Lives and Dollars