Ghosting Afghanistan

As a nation, we’ve been talking about pulling out of Afghanistan for many years. Well, by talking about, I mean kind of thinking about doing it at some point. No real plan, just, like, I dunno, whenever.

Well, it seems that period of mulling it over is over. The US has essentially abandoned Bagram air field in the dark of night and left the Afghan government to fend for itself. Naturally, the Taliban has quickly moved in to claim vast swaths of territory.

I am not a veteran of the Afghanistan war (my war was in Iraq) but I know many Marines who are. (However, I did do a lot of research on the nation when I was working on Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli.) Afghanistan has historically always been a difficult place to fight a war, and the US is not the first to call it quits without a defined victory. I’ve seen mixed opinions across the board, some of it genuine and some of it hyper-partisan based on their opinion of the current administration (of course). At the end of the day, 20 years is a long time to be engaged in any war, and it was going to need to end at some point.

Better to pull the bandaid off in one motion, arm hairs and all, than to drag it out.