Wars past and present

Tom Nichols made an observation on Twitter that I found thought provoking:

... Biden‘s approval never recovers after the pullout from Afghanistan. Bush, Obama and Trump didn’t pull out of Afghanistan because everyone knew that the American people were going to punish whoever did what they were demanding be done.

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I think that's right. I speak from the somewhat rare perspective of having been certain before the US invaded Afghanistan that this was going to be a clusterfuck. There was a response to 9/11 that need not have been so disastrous; we could have gone in, grabbed (or more likely just killed) the intellectual authors and enablers of that attack -- and left it to Afghans sort themselves out. There was no reason to think the results would have been pretty for Afghan women or Afghan civil society such as it existed, but nothing was gained and much lost by our long occupation.

Biden did the right thing by finally cutting our losses. The withdrawal could, and should, have been handled better, ensuring protection to the many Afghans who had bought into our project so much more deeply than we ever did. But getting out was right. And it is worth appreciating that Biden dared to walk into an anticipated minefield.

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On the topic of wars ... I want to recommend Joe Cirincione's takedown of RFK Jr. who seems to be stooging for Russia, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson on the margins of the Democratic Party (GOPers love the guy). Cirincione has terrific qualifications to speak on war and justice, having toiled for nuclear disarmament for years as the head of Ploughshares Fund. He remains an anti-imperialist:

Kennedy denies the agency of smaller nations. He and others assume a Great Power logic, that only the big nations matter. Rep. Jamie Raskin calls this the “colonialist reflex.” ...

 ... Kennedy is repeating an integral part of Putin’s effort to discredit Ukraine’s government as illegitimate and to erase the idea of an independent Ukrainian nation. For Putin (and Kennedy), the only way Ukraine could have a government that he did not support is if it was “hand-picked” by the United States - or in this case, by a single assistant secretary of state.

Nor was the new government “unelected.” It was elected by the Ukrainian parliament and then changed leadership peacefully and democratically in numerous popular elections since.

This war is about Ukraine, not us. Read it all.