Several weeks ago I wrote an opinion piece for The SOG City Oracle suggesting that America's involvement in Afghanistan was a history lesson ignored by our esteemed leaders...and, I use that term "leaders" very loosely. The thrust of that article was that throughout history, invaders of Afghanistan have been getting their asses kicked (Alexander the Great and the British) or their asses kicked and their country forced into bankruptcy and flushed down the toilet (Soviet Union).
For the last nine years it has been the turn of the United States of Arrogance to give it a go. So, how's that war thing workin' out? It would appear that the Afghans are pretty much doing to us what they did to the Soviets. Of course, we are way smarter than those damned Commies. We would never allow the Afghans to chip away at our troops for years and years while we drain billions of dollars from an economy that is already a disaster. No, we are way too smart for that.
Besides which, we have a new plan. Well, it really isn't new. It is a plan implemented several thousand years ago by Alexander the Great. It seems that Alex was getting his clock cleaned by the Afghans on a regular basis, so he came up with the brilliant idea of paying the Afghans not to fight him. So far this year, Congress has earmarked $100,000,000...that's one hundred million dollars...for a so-called "re-integration program" that essentially pays low-level Taliban fighters not to fight us. I have no idea how much that plan cost Alex, but he eventually decided that Afghanistan was not worth the cost...in human lives, or money.
We could take a lesson from Alex, the British, and the Soviets and cut our loses, pack our bags, and go home. Will we? It's doubtful. There aren't nearly enough dead Americans, and we still have some money left that we can strip from various entitlement programs. We have yet to learn our lesson.
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