I enjoyed reading Bill T. of Arizona's synopsis of the four administration failures in Afghanistan, and I agree with him. It is particularly troubling to hear the president and others on the left denigrate the Afghans themselves as somehow being deficient in desire for freedom. Approximately 69,000 Afghan security forces have been killed (along with 51,000 civilians), compared to roughly 3,500 coalition soldiers (2/3rds of them Americans). That makes a 30:1 ratio of Afghan deaths to Americans. I'm interested to note that the population of Afghanistan in 2001 was essentially the same as the population of the northern states in 1860, prior to the Civil War. The north lost 110,000 men in battle (many more to disease). That puts the 69,000 Afghan lives in better perspective, and says something about their commitment.
Another observation I make, though, is that President Biden hasn't built a cult of personality like Donald Trump did. If Trump had been in charge of this miserable failure, he would have declared it to be a perfect exit, and most of the Republicans would have been behind him nodding in agreement. At least the Democrats are complaining about how the pullout was handled and are launching investigations. —Kerry J., Utah
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