Yesterday David Brooks published a column in which he questioned President Obama's ability to stand by (stubbornly) a decision to fight on in Afghanistan. Nowhere in the article does Brooks mention that our generals agree that this struggle will take another ten years, which adds up to an 18 year war to control a mountainous desert of no value to anyone. And climate change is not going to make Afghanistan more habitable.
Afghanistan has never been conquered because the place is useless and almost no one wants to live there. It's like the old daoist maxim: the useless tree lives the longest. No one wants its wood or fruit. It doesn't repay cutting down.
Obama probably understands that ten more years of war there (and another 50,000 American casualties) makes no sense, but can he block the massive current momentum and the self-willed stupidity represented by an otherwise B student like David Brooks?
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