“You want to talk about backward? How about refusing to be vaccinated for COVID, or states which have passed laws that control women’s lives by limiting or completely ending their right to abortions? Or worshiping god by holding that women cannot be leaders or pastors in church? “
Superb. Forceful, factual, and above all, TRUE. I’ve been poaching these wonderful commentaries as a non-subscriber. That ends today as I subscribe. A. E. Norton, CDR, USN (Ret.)
Thank you. I'm still haunted by our desertion of the Kurds in Syria who were willing to fight for their freedom. In Afghanistan we were trying to prop up a corrupt, ineffective government and then are aghast that the Afghanis were unwilling to back it up with their lives. Many of the politicians who are screaming how we "lost" Afghanistan and wringing their hands over the plight of Afghani women are those who are happy to do business with Saudi Arabia and voted against the extension of the Violence Against Women act. So thank you for this article.
It should not be lost that when Trump announced a specific end date, it gave the Taliban an opportunity to deploy around these cities and simply wait. It would have been messy for any President. I’m glad we withdrew.
Biden did the right thing! The war was expensive and pointless. The "good guys" didn't have the will to fight. A pluralistic society was not possible. Trump's deal with the Taliban to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners was pure assholic Trump. When something has to end, it does. MSNBC and CNN have gone off the deep end. They've gone from being hope peddlers during the Trump years (they made riveting tv) to total lying jerks. #sosad
ps...i recall during the Bush years when Madeleine Albright said the war in Iraq would distract us from Afghanistan. Well, she was right. We lost both. Biden is right to get us out now and take the bs heat he's getting. The country will be behind him on this. The media is not the country.
This is THEIR country. As you so adroitly and convincingly clarify, even though, for crying out loud, it shouldn’t need any clarification. This is the column I’ve been longing for during the last few days.
Truly. And focus on technique and perception of the withdrawal is like armchair coaching “would-a, could-a exercises of futility. The Washington Post reported yesterday that no military leaders believed the Afghanis would fight. Then, today, there’s all this hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Does NO ONE believe in reviewing history? This was a pointless war that never could be “won” and exiting looks a lot like Viet Nam. DUH.
I could just barf all over Repugs who have no remorse for squandering wealth on pointless military escapades, but refuse to invest in American people, infrastructure or public health. THATS where the angst should be—Mitch McConnell can go f$*k himself.
Meanwhile, the West is burning and they’ve run out of water—let’s not forget the ceaseless Repug campaign against addressing global climate change.
Eric Boehlert in Press Run put it succinctly in paragraph 3:
"A convenient, gaping hole in the coverage and commentary? The U.S. mission in Afghanistan was unalterably damaged when President George W. Bush hijacked that post-9/11 military mission and foolishly turned the Pentagon’s time, attention, and resources to a doomed invasion of Iraq."
Thanks again, Lucian. So much of this piece resonates with me and my own experience in what was then called, ‘South Viet Nam.’ A rural people that had once been occupied by the French colonialists, now occupied by American military forces. Those friendly local farmers waving to us as we rolled by - me in my ‘Radio Jeep’ bristling with antennae - buried in a long convoy of Armed Personnel Carriers, trucks carrying South Vietnamese troops and their American advisors en route to setting up a Tactical Operations Center in some little burg between Bac Lieu and Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta? By night, many of those same ‘friendly’ farmers working the rice paddies by day would pick up their ancient bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifles (the same ones they used to expel the French in 1954 at Diem Bien Phu) and join with their VC comrades to wreak havoc on those who had profited from and worked with the current US overlords. As you noted in your piece: who could blame them? This was their country, not ours. Truth be told, Ho Chi Minh, whose forces worked with the U.S. against Japanese invaders in WW2, dearly wanted American help after that conflict to evict the French. When he was rebuffed, he turned to the Russians. Who could blame him? Not I. It seems we never learn. Sad. “Bigly”
Another point that should be made-all those people who are dumping on Mr. Biden, were the same ones who voted for the Afghanistan occupation for 20 years-year after year.
Seems they should shut the hell up before someone mentions it. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, didn't you vote for the money for Afghanistan? Repeatedly?
Then they are the voices blaming the man who said he'd end the war, one way or another-and it ended, all right, but without the thank you for all the fish.
Sorry, wars do not end well at all.
We shouldn't have been there in the first place and now we're gone. All we have left is a bunch of Trillion dollars spent in futility for nothing but death and suffering.
Still waiting for the commentary that touches *all* the bases, but yours is definitely in the top three. From the outside, not surprisingly, we see Afghanistan as a whole. We talk about it as if it's a country with a center, with common goals. From honestly reckoning with our own country we ought to know better. Afghanistan is fragmented not only by geography but by ethnic/language groups, Pashto and Dari/Farsi. Liberal (in the classic sense) Western ideals are grafted on, as they have been in the Middle East and elsewhere, with rather mixed results. Just in general, I don't think we USians really understand what makes our system work (sorta). It wasn't bought off the rack. It's evolved over the centuries, with fits and starts and lots of backsliding. It can't be exported in a neat package. The "best and the brightest" still don't get this, and for sure the mediocre and dim don't either.
Beautiful, Lucian. The example of the British in 19th century Afghanistan has always been definitive for me; When they gave up and retreated, the Afghans ambushed the retreating column and killed all but one man, who died later of his wounds. The Afghans are a tribal people, they don't know from democracy, which is not all it's cracked up to be anyway. They have tribal leaders. Most of them are Taliban. Game over. Nothing every touches American arrogance,or the accompanying American stupidity.
Perfectly, perfectly said:
“You want to talk about backward? How about refusing to be vaccinated for COVID, or states which have passed laws that control women’s lives by limiting or completely ending their right to abortions? Or worshiping god by holding that women cannot be leaders or pastors in church? “
Superb. Forceful, factual, and above all, TRUE. I’ve been poaching these wonderful commentaries as a non-subscriber. That ends today as I subscribe. A. E. Norton, CDR, USN (Ret.)
Thank you. I'm still haunted by our desertion of the Kurds in Syria who were willing to fight for their freedom. In Afghanistan we were trying to prop up a corrupt, ineffective government and then are aghast that the Afghanis were unwilling to back it up with their lives. Many of the politicians who are screaming how we "lost" Afghanistan and wringing their hands over the plight of Afghani women are those who are happy to do business with Saudi Arabia and voted against the extension of the Violence Against Women act. So thank you for this article.
It should not be lost that when Trump announced a specific end date, it gave the Taliban an opportunity to deploy around these cities and simply wait. It would have been messy for any President. I’m glad we withdrew.
An excellent piece, Lucian. One of your best. We should not have been there, and thank Biden for finally getting us out.
Biden did the right thing! The war was expensive and pointless. The "good guys" didn't have the will to fight. A pluralistic society was not possible. Trump's deal with the Taliban to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners was pure assholic Trump. When something has to end, it does. MSNBC and CNN have gone off the deep end. They've gone from being hope peddlers during the Trump years (they made riveting tv) to total lying jerks. #sosad
ps...i recall during the Bush years when Madeleine Albright said the war in Iraq would distract us from Afghanistan. Well, she was right. We lost both. Biden is right to get us out now and take the bs heat he's getting. The country will be behind him on this. The media is not the country.
This is THEIR country. As you so adroitly and convincingly clarify, even though, for crying out loud, it shouldn’t need any clarification. This is the column I’ve been longing for during the last few days.
Truly. And focus on technique and perception of the withdrawal is like armchair coaching “would-a, could-a exercises of futility. The Washington Post reported yesterday that no military leaders believed the Afghanis would fight. Then, today, there’s all this hand-wringing and finger-pointing. Does NO ONE believe in reviewing history? This was a pointless war that never could be “won” and exiting looks a lot like Viet Nam. DUH.
I could just barf all over Repugs who have no remorse for squandering wealth on pointless military escapades, but refuse to invest in American people, infrastructure or public health. THATS where the angst should be—Mitch McConnell can go f$*k himself.
Meanwhile, the West is burning and they’ve run out of water—let’s not forget the ceaseless Repug campaign against addressing global climate change.
Eric Boehlert in Press Run put it succinctly in paragraph 3:
"A convenient, gaping hole in the coverage and commentary? The U.S. mission in Afghanistan was unalterably damaged when President George W. Bush hijacked that post-9/11 military mission and foolishly turned the Pentagon’s time, attention, and resources to a doomed invasion of Iraq."
Thanks again, Lucian. So much of this piece resonates with me and my own experience in what was then called, ‘South Viet Nam.’ A rural people that had once been occupied by the French colonialists, now occupied by American military forces. Those friendly local farmers waving to us as we rolled by - me in my ‘Radio Jeep’ bristling with antennae - buried in a long convoy of Armed Personnel Carriers, trucks carrying South Vietnamese troops and their American advisors en route to setting up a Tactical Operations Center in some little burg between Bac Lieu and Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta? By night, many of those same ‘friendly’ farmers working the rice paddies by day would pick up their ancient bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifles (the same ones they used to expel the French in 1954 at Diem Bien Phu) and join with their VC comrades to wreak havoc on those who had profited from and worked with the current US overlords. As you noted in your piece: who could blame them? This was their country, not ours. Truth be told, Ho Chi Minh, whose forces worked with the U.S. against Japanese invaders in WW2, dearly wanted American help after that conflict to evict the French. When he was rebuffed, he turned to the Russians. Who could blame him? Not I. It seems we never learn. Sad. “Bigly”
Bravo! Absolutely brilliant!
Another point that should be made-all those people who are dumping on Mr. Biden, were the same ones who voted for the Afghanistan occupation for 20 years-year after year.
Seems they should shut the hell up before someone mentions it. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, didn't you vote for the money for Afghanistan? Repeatedly?
Then they are the voices blaming the man who said he'd end the war, one way or another-and it ended, all right, but without the thank you for all the fish.
Sorry, wars do not end well at all.
We shouldn't have been there in the first place and now we're gone. All we have left is a bunch of Trillion dollars spent in futility for nothing but death and suffering.
Still waiting for the commentary that touches *all* the bases, but yours is definitely in the top three. From the outside, not surprisingly, we see Afghanistan as a whole. We talk about it as if it's a country with a center, with common goals. From honestly reckoning with our own country we ought to know better. Afghanistan is fragmented not only by geography but by ethnic/language groups, Pashto and Dari/Farsi. Liberal (in the classic sense) Western ideals are grafted on, as they have been in the Middle East and elsewhere, with rather mixed results. Just in general, I don't think we USians really understand what makes our system work (sorta). It wasn't bought off the rack. It's evolved over the centuries, with fits and starts and lots of backsliding. It can't be exported in a neat package. The "best and the brightest" still don't get this, and for sure the mediocre and dim don't either.
Yesterday, when the pearl clutching ensued on MSNBC, I turned it off and retired to one of my novels. Thank you for this, Lucian.
Beautiful, Lucian. The example of the British in 19th century Afghanistan has always been definitive for me; When they gave up and retreated, the Afghans ambushed the retreating column and killed all but one man, who died later of his wounds. The Afghans are a tribal people, they don't know from democracy, which is not all it's cracked up to be anyway. They have tribal leaders. Most of them are Taliban. Game over. Nothing every touches American arrogance,or the accompanying American stupidity.
Mr. Truscott, you have become the rare voice of clarity in a world of foggy, muddy, self-serving reporters and news analysts.