Exiting Afghanistan

     I hate seeing the way we are leaving Afghanistan, but one thing is true. We need to leave. There is no more benefit in remaining. It's too dangerous a place to send our men and women, and there is little reason spend another American cent on a country who has never enjoyed peace.  Now with members of the Afghan army and police officers abandoning their posts, there is a terrible rush to leave; a rush to leave after spending millions and losing thousands of our men and women in uniform. And know that the schools we developed and the new culture elevating women's opportunities we helped create will vanish before the dust settles on an Afghan sunset. 

    We need to leave. There's little reason to stay anymore. We can't bring the lives lost back, and we can't un-spend the billions we've spent. But this won't be pretty. Many will die and who knows what punishment the Taliban will lay on those who helped us, and believed in our mission. We still need to leave.

    We do need to remember how we arrived in Afghanistan, why we arrived in Afghanistan, and who shoved us into this crazy war. 

    As always, thank a Republican for me.

Leaving Afghanistan

        Well, it's all but over. We will finally be leaving Afghanistan, but it is just another one of those wars where we leave the country broken. As I write this account ISIS is running through the country destroying everything in their path. We will hang around and protect whatever we can, relying on the Afghani Army to protect what they can. But they won't last long. I'm not saying that we won't launch a few missiles, drones and artillery, but it will have little effect, and ISIS  will continue. 

        This has come at a heavy expense. The BBC estimates about 3500 coalition soldiers have been killed, 2312 of whom have been Americans, and Afghani Security deaths are estimated at 69000. $530 billion has been spent in the process.

        What is probably the worst of this is that many knowledgeable voices, voices who understood the peril into which we were sending our troops, were shut down by these words. "You don't support the troops!" I guess Republicans believe that supporting the troops means putting our men into costly and unwinnable wars. Thank a Republican for me.