Walt explains why fighting Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan is wrong

"He's not heavy, he's my brother!" We don't know if there's any relationship between the injured man and the one carrying him, other than perhaps the brotherhood of faith in the so-called Religion of Peace. Both are Muslims. One is carrying the other away from the site of yesterday's suicide car bombing -- the vehicle was an ambulance, actually! -- in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, one of the world's shitholiest countries.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the dastardly attack, which has claimed the lives of 95 and counting, with another 158 injured. The majority of the dead in the attack are civilians, but there were casualties among the feckless Afghan security forces as well. The bombing is the deadliest insurgent attack in Armpitistan so far this year. But it's not the only one.

A week ago, six Taliban militants attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, leaving 22 people dead, including 14 infidel foreigners. Some 150 guests fled the gun battle and consequent fire by shimmying down bedsheets from the upper floors. The US State Department said a number [What number? Ed.] of American citizens were killed and injured in the attack.

Four days later, another gang of Islamic terrorists -- members of ISIS this time -- stormed the eastern Afghanistan offices of Save the Children, killing four aid workers and triggering a standoff with police that lasted almost ten hours. ISIS was involved in at least ten fatal attacks in Afghanistan last year.

Since the USA and NATO formally ended their combat mission in the AME (Armpit of the Middle East), Afghan security forces have been battling to fight the Taliban on one side and ISIS on the other. And they've been losing. Every week the amount of territory controlled by the Islamists increases, and the writ of the so-called Afghan government barely runs in Kabul, let along in the countryside.

President Trump has a plan to fix that. He wants to send 1000s more American troops to Afghanistan and envisions shifting away from a "time-based" approach to one that more explicitly links US assistance to concrete results from the Afghan government. After a recent visit to Kabul, Nikki Haley, the American envoy to the Disunited Nations, said the policy was working and that peace talks between the government and the Taliban are closer than ever before.

With respect, Walt thinks the President's policy is wrong. Decades of American adventurism under both Republican and Democratic administrations have got us nowhere. The 2014 withdrawal gave some promise of an end to the waste of Western lives and money. Pouring more of both into the sands of the AME is not the right thing to do. What the President should do is withdraw all American forces -- all of them! -- and let the Muslims fight their civil war on their own soil. Let them duke it out, and may the most righteous be the last Islamist standing. And may he then use a scimitar to cut off his own head. Selah!