I am downright nauseated to hear talk of the U.S. "leaving" Afghanistan and discussion of the subsequent issue, that issue [[in my own words, of course) being, "Can the Afghans take care of their own shit, now?"
Keep in mind that I buy into absolutely none of the entire "War On Terror" objective; I never have tried to nail jelly to a tree, but I'm fairly certain that it's pointless. Working to root out the sources of jelly is one thing, but once the jelly is out there, trying to nail it to a tree is a fool's errand.
But, even leaving that nebulous mission out of the discussion, I am moved to announce to the world-- and I'm betting that I am not alone, here-- that I could not possibly care less about how the fuck Afghanistan muddles along after our departure.
I realize that the world has gone flat, and that "no man is an island," and all of that stuff, I know that we cannot carry on as though events on the other side of the globe are irrelevant & meaningless to us, yes yes, I know all of that, but we are in a big goddam mess of our own, right now-- economically speaking, and using a quaint little phrase I learned from my father, we "don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of"-- and we have a plethora of Bigger Fish To Fry than the relative minnow represented by Afghanistan and its goddam security.
Yeah, that's right, I said it: Fuck Afghanistan. We've been there long enough, especially given that, in my opinion, we scarcely needed to be there in the first goddam place. If the Afghans are over-run by, and aswarm with, the Taliban, Al-Queda and/or who the hell knows whoever else, after we leave, and they don't like it, how about they fucking do something about it.
All we have done is chop a few heads off of a self-regenerating hydra and chase the son of a bitch into another locale. I'm not even convinced that we have done that much.
None of the above rant should be read as meaning that I have anything but the deepest respect for the young men & women who have served in Afghanistan. The honor of their actions far exceeds the wisdom, and worth, of the mission itself. In fact, the one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other.