When you're wounded

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

Rudyard Kipling

The British have gotten tossed out of Afghanistan. Twice. And so have the Soviets. Now is appears likely that it will be our turn to beat an ignominious retreat from that country. For the same reason: hubris.

Spot reads in today's Star Tribune about a new front in the Afghan war in the west of the country. This is in addition to the fighting that has been occurring in the Pashtun south. The trend line is not good, boys and girls. One of the reasons we are playing whack-a-mole in Afghanistan, of course, is that we picked up and left Afghanistan to invade Iraq, a move foretold to us in a fevered neocon vision.

For a novelization - though historically accurate, unlike a recent mini-series Spot could name - of the first British invasion of Afghanstan, Spot recommends Philip Hensher's The Mulberry Empire.


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