We’ve been in country far too long. The problem is, of course, that everyone knows the President who manages a troop withdrawal will get the blame for any US terrorist attack that originates there. It seems to me that’s principally what keeps this futile effort going.
. . . and also the blame for “losing” the perpetually around-the-corner victory that they keep predicting but cannot actually seem to achieve.
Yes, exactly.
The worst of it, in addition to all the lives lost in a noble but misguided attempt to serve their country, is that the next time we have idiot politicians intent on using the sledge hammer of our military to try to solve an intractable problem that requires something more complicated and delicate, it will still be considered unpatriotic to recall and bring up the current debacles.
I can only assume that “insider attack” is some term of art known to those concerned–perhaps implying that the killing occurred inside the country of Afghanistan? Nothing in the post suggests who beside the deceased was inside what.
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out that Prince is working both sides.
“Insider attack” is what the U.S. military calls an attack when U.S. forces are killed by the Afghans they’re training and fighting with.
More’s the pity. Thanks.
Well I’m a combat veteran and here’s my take. No fucking shithole is worth an American life. That goes in spades if the shithole is filled with treacherous fanatics that are not controlled by the government we’re supposed to be helping.
Somewhere a family is getting the worst news of their life. A wife? Kids? Mother and father? Their person is gone. The military will drape that with lofty talk of heroism and a flag for the wife or mother but their person is gone because he was sent into mission impossible. In the end the USA will abandon Afghanistan as hopeless as all others have. It’s a world class shithole ( been there ) and all will be for naught. Same will go down for Iraq as it did in Vietnam. After these lessons that no military prick or political coward will learn shit from we’ll have buried near 100,000 young American men and women. 100,000 gravely hurt families…AMERICAN families so what’s the fucking point?
I want to say something that usually pisses people off. When you watch a young American die in the armpit of the world you watch all that he talked to you about die too. No, he will never go to collage. No he will not marry that girl in the photo he gazes at every night. No he will not attend his kids 5th birthday party. He will lose his American life and all that it has coming for him. People will say he sacrificed or “gave” his life for his country. Bull shit. No soldier thinks like that. All soldiers except medal seeking brass well behind the lines have one objective: get out of “the shit” and get back to “the world”.
This young man was shot in the back by some fucking piece of Afghan shit. Right now there’s another American kid in that shithole just like like I mentioned above. Dreaming about life back in the world but another piece of shit is going to kill him. Or her. Bring em home.
Another reason to thank Obama for getting us out of Afghanistan!
The steady drip drip drip of casualties continues to mount. 17 years on the way to fucking forever. This shithole is un-winnable to everyone but Osama, that fucker won it in 2001 and he knew it.
We’re still in Afghanistan? I thought President Obama was going to get us out during his 8 years in office.
Oh, well. America’s secret wars all over the world go on, mostly uncovered by the press. Meanwhile, some of America’s greatest warmongers, including George W. Bush and Henry Kissinger, gathered over the weekend to eulogize one of there own, John McCain. Mistakes like the wars in Iraq and Vietnam were not even mentioned, because, you know, patriotism!
Who cares about the slaughter of hundred’s of thousands by America’s war machine, anyway? John McCain was a great American Hero!
The Taliban sure do think it is winnable.
Hillary was there to comfort her old friends and I am sure Mrs. Obama had a few cough drops to spare for her peers.