Yes, you read that right: Donald Trump is trying to do something right. Not only is he trying to take a staggering 2,500 troops out of Iraq, he’s trying to take a staggering 2,500 troops out of Afghanistan as well! Effectively ending America’s only official shooting war! Almost as if we weren’t, you know, in danger! In very, very great danger! So great, in fact, that I can only wish I had, you know, double italics to convey that danger’s greatness! But since I don’t, please imagine them for me!
Naturally, the thought of ending America’s only official shooting war (never mind Syria; you don’t need to know about that) has provoked the Great American War Machine into an advanced state of pearl-clutching from the usual plug-uglies, like Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but, sadly, it’s not confined to them. My quondam buddy Fred Kaplan, now sadly quarantined behind a paywall, is playing the moderate hawk’s version of the same tune: sure, we should leave; just not now. “This Is Not How to End the War in Afghanistan”, Fred “explains”.
The neocons are always sure we can get a “better deal”. But they don’t really want a “better deal”. All they want is for the killing and dying to continue, so that they can continue: continue getting paid to be experts, continue writing papers no one will read, continue attending conferences no sensible person would attend. If only people didn’t have to die so that the William Kristols, the Daniel Drezners, the Fred Kaplans of the world—the whole squalling pack o’ neocons, right, left, and center—could thrive! If only!
Afterwords
The term “neocon” is now frequently said to be passé, and certainly a great many of the people I’m complaining about, which really includes folks like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who simply gave us eight years of “Bush Light” (leavened, it’s true, with the nuclear agreement with Iran), have had little to do with the world of neocon godfather Irving Kristol. The preferred, more inclusive term these days is “the Blob”, about which I’ve complained most extensively here. Fred Kaplan (remember him!) attempted to come to terms with a U.S. “surrender” in Afghanistan back in March of this year, when Trump first began making peace-like noises. Fred also struggled, with little success, to “explain” our policy in Syria, eventually concluding, a bit awkwardly, that it looks like we don’t know what we’re doing there because, well, because we don’t know what we’re doing there.
On TV news–which I am ashamed to say is where I get it–everyone is “up in arms” (not weapons) about the troops leaving Afghanistan & Iraq early.
Basically saying it is not safe. You would know more than I do!