After the defeat of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of its forces in 1989, Afghanistan collapsed into civil war.  From that appalling war the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement, emerged victorious.  Then the Taliban provided a home for Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group then truck-bombed two American embassies in East Africa and attacked the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen.  The Clinton administration kinda-sorta wanted to do something about the problem.  However, Americans weren’t ramped-up for war at the time; the head of the CIA wasn’t sure that it was OK to kill foreign terrorists; Pakistan saw the Taliban as a useful client[1]; cruise missiles were problematic because flying them across Pakistan into Afghanistan might trigger a Paki-Indian nuclear war by mistake, so you had to tell the Pakis about the attacks and the Pakis told Bin Laden; the U.S. military despised Bill Clinton, so they didn’t work hard at providing the dough-head with options; and drones were just a twinkle in the eye of weapons designers.  So, the Americans did nothing effective.  Then came 9/11.[2]

Virtually none of the original conditions now apply.  Americans now are perfectly content to blow up suspected Islamist radicals; drones have advanced massively in number and capacities; no American regards either Afghanistan or the Pakistan’s “tribal regions” as a “No Go  Zone”; any thinking person regards Pakistan as an enemy state; and—as under Bill Clinton—the American military wants to limit the range of choices presented to the president.   Now Americans can strike at radical Islamists with a free hand.  Why not just say 2017 is not 2001?  What are we to do?  Why send troops?  Get.  Out.  Yet the recent war-plan announced by President Trump takes little account of these –perceived only by me?—realities.

Well, what about the blown-up Buddhist statues because radical Islamists object to the physical representation of deities (icons) and to polytheism?  What about the ban on televisions (for the same reason they blew up the Buddhist statues)?  What about the women in blue burkas falling down in the street because they can’t see where they’re going?  What about the “honor killings”?  What about the sodomized young boys because sometimes that how men with guns roll?  Sucks to be them.  But it sucks to be an American soldier.  Just one percent of Americans do military service. (Lots more put yellow ribbons on the trunks of cars and the tail-gates of pick-up trucks.  So, that’s a help, I’m realize.)  Even so, for whom and for what do we ask American soldiers to fight?  For oil companies?  For feminist ideals of how all women should be treated?  For hetero-normativity?  So we don’t have to say we lost a war?

Why aren’t people in the streets over this issue?  They were when I was a kid.[3]  Four decades later, the same generation appears indifferent to a war shrouded in puzzles.  (OK, some of them are exercised over transgender bathrooms and Confederate monuments.[4])  Where is Congress on the war?

Where does South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) fit in America’s national security strategy?  Where does it rank in comparison to Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East?  What happens if we “lose” Afghanistan?  What would we get out of “winning” in Afghanistan?  What would constitute “winning”?  IDK.  I’m just one guy.

[1] They still do.

[2] See: The Report of the 9/11 Commission.

[3] Truth in packaging: I wasn’t one of them.  Never occurred to me.  OK, Seattle in the Seventies was a time machine: take you back to the world of Ward and June Cleever.  Really, it was just shy and contrarian me.

[4] Republicans hold the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and 34 state governorships.  It seems unlikely that these sorts of issues offer a path to a Democratic majority.