I spent the day yesterday refreshing Twitter and other news sites to get the latest news out of Afghanistan. Any takeover of a country is a pretty big deal. I’ve watched some pretty unbelievable events in my lifetime, the coup in Russia, the Arab Spring, and more, and this felt like those did. Except for one important detail.
Those other events were about other countries and their issues. But this story in Afghanistan, alas, is an American story.
We started this timeline, over 20 years ago, and it continued through four presidential administrations. It is our collective failure. All the political finger pointing I read yesterday was predictable — I mean, who wants to own a failure? My thoughts on that were best summed up with this:
Watching Afghanistan fall to the Taliban once again is really rough for our friends and family in the military who have served there. Be sure to reach out to them, even just to listen.
The news and stories out of Afghanistan in the coming days is going to be hard to swallow, no matter how you feel about America’s role outside our borders.
Be kind to yourself, and take care of your friends.
