My book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan came out a year ago today. It was good timing since I knew that Trump was about to launch his first escalation there and that other than that, the status quo would hold: the Taliban would continue to slowly retake the country-side, they would attack major cities and Afghan National Army outposts, while never staying long enough to get their fixed positions bombed to oblivion by U.S. B-1s, and the national government in Kabul would continue to hang on by a thread and another pallet of U.S. cash.
(I had to revise the text after only one week to change all of my future tense claims about what Trump was going to do with past tense reports of what he had just done. So some of you who bought the book right away may have the rare collectors item version, which is also worth $20.00.)
Everything I wrote about how it’s not too late for Trump to turn around and blame the failure of this war all on Big-Dummy Bush Jr., and Big-Weakling Obama (and go ahead and throw Petraeus and McMaster under the bus while he’s at it) remains true. Trump has a way of unapologetically flip-flopping around on all kinds of things and getting away with it, and we all know from his history that he really does know better than to keep fighting this horrible war in the first place. If the Kabul government cannot stand after 17 years of support by the U.S., then that proves it does not have the support of the Afghan people. The Pashtun tribesmen are not our enemies, just because stupid idiot Bush and wimp loser Obama say they are. War’s lost. Come home. No deal necessary. Just leave. He’d be Trump the Great, for a day. That’s my take, anyway.
Thanks very much to everyone who helped me write the book, have given it so many great reviews and had me out to their events to speak about it and such. (I even got on C-SPAN).
My favorite review of the book is by Adam House, a veteran of the Korengal Valley campaign and now a friend of mine too: Fool’s Errand: Under Review.
