Afghanistan: 2 decades’ worth of vain sacrifices

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We all knew that this would be the end result of the Afghan war: total chaos as the Taliban overruns cities once occupied by the US military. The entire nation suddenly realizing that the thousands of Americans who died there, the hundreds of thousands maimed there, made their sacrifices in vain. It’s not surprising, the image that we’re seeing of Kabul, of the approaching Taliban. It’s their country, not ours. The occupation was an opportunity for generals to earn medals, and weapons manufacturers to earn profits. Nothing more. It was never meant to end. There was never a goal. The lost limbs, the suicides, the absent parents, the wasted billions, the wasted years, the innocent Afghan lives lost, those sacrifices never served a greater goal or higher purpose. It was a total racket. As ugly as it is to watch it end, it had to end. It’s painful to realize that the first war that our nation begun in the aftermath of 9/11 so quickly transformed into a lie, but we have to face reality. We never demanded an end to it, we never cared. That war never affected us.

And now you can see parallels between the Afghan war and our domestic war on COVID. All the opinion moulders have no skin in the game. Their paycheck isn’t threatened, their kids’ private school isn’t closed. The war on COVID has become an endless war, public health authorities have become the generals, hospitals have become the “front line”, and we the little people have become the collateral. Evil thrives in an environment of apathy. Apathy allowed Afghanistan to endure for two decades. We must break free of this apathy, this slovenly acceptance of evil, and put an end to it, before the war on COVID becomes generational.