Finally, We Leave. Worn Out, Worn Down. Humbled.

 September 11. How ironic a deadline. How demonstrative. Twenty years.

Twenty years of lasting in Afghanistan. And for what?

Originally, it was a matter of trying to find Osama bin Laden. But they found him in Pakistan and took him out.

After that, it was about being apologetic about remaining in the country to advance human rights. We were, again, halfway in and halfway out, getting people killed for nobody quite knew what.

Mostly, it was about getting women and girls an equal chance for an education and advancement. But the culture doesn't believe in that. The culture is based on the 6th Century. It's now the 21st. That's 1500 years. We have enough trouble moving our own culture from the point at which blacks came here as slaves, and that's only four centuries ago. Almost seems like yesterday.

Our last, awful president wanted to completely withdraw the troops, too. He wanted to do it all at once, ignoring political realities. In a stunning surprise, he had the right idea. But he wants to withdraw everybody from everywhere, and that won't work. That would be pretending that it's 1795.

Joe Biden is saying that enough's enough. He's not eschewing our international role, like his predecessor would prefer. He just knows when it's ridiculous to stay in a place where you're not wanted, even though you may be doing some good.

The British tried the same thing in the 19th Century. The Soviets tried the same thing in the 20th Century, and partly cost Jimmy Carter his job, bringing on the disastrous Ronald Reagan. We tried the same thing for the first 20 percent of the 21st Century. Everybody failed. They failed because Afghanistan is mostly mountains, the same way Vietnam is mostly jungles. People there know how to hide, and where.

You can't find them all. You can't bomb them all. But leaders had to show that we were trying. It was posturing through invasion.

We went in anger because someone managed to evade flight regulations and use jetliners to bomb the World Trade Center and Pentagon. "We are coming," said John McCain on Jay Leno's Tonight Show.

Again, we thought that military technology would win the day, that cleaning up that problem would be short, sweet, and decisive. It was none of them.

Because we'd learned, but not enough to prevent posturing which cost lives. We'd learned that half a commitment in Vietnam could forestall, but not prevent, an undeniable movement. It could invade, but not change, the dominant culture.

But we were angry. Somebody had to do something. America had been attacked for the first time ever! Using the CIA or the DSA or some other invented, surreptitious cadre to find the perps who didn't kill themselves to accomplish the unthinkable wasn't enough. There had to be a display. We had to see the counterattack.

Not to mention the anger that the Afghans had. They had foreigners in their country for twenty years. They must have rolled their eyes and gotten back to work on repelling invaders the same way their forebears had--passively, with ambushes and religious fanaticism that most of us find unfathomable, either because of its intensity or because it isn't Christian, making it impossible be accepted or even understood.

The public also lost interest. After the original surge, almost no articles were written about Afghanistan per week, per month. Columns emerged as afterthoughts. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew why things needed to be done.

The Taliban knew what to do: Play the waiting game. Just like in Vietnam, they knew Americans don't like the long game when it comes to war. We're tantalized by our technology, whether it works or not.

The Washington Post is warning of a possible disaster if we leave. Oh, so we should stay? We should continue to put our people at risk and keep losing them a drip-drip-drip at a time? Twenty years wasn't enough to prove that futility?

Twenty years wasn't enough to persuade the population of Afghanistan that it's in their best interests to avoid the ancient, horribly repressive rule of backward groups like the Taliban? Then it will never be enough. Time to go. Biden is right.

Time for a reset. Time for a reconsideration of intervention. The last country we saved, the last people we truly saved, live in Kuwait. We saved them from one dictator and preserved the government for a king 30 years ago. We didn't do it for high-minded, democratic reasons, though Bush-41 touted the "free people of Kuwait." We did it for the oil.

The first time we tried making the world safe for democracy was in 1917. We got there just in time, then stood there at Versailles and watched the French (mostly) set the stage for the next world war. The League of Nations, which we did not join, did not work. World War II worked nicely after devastating a considerable part of the world, creating the United Nations. But that organization is limited in what it can do: Try reading Samantha Power's (UN Ambassador under Obama) book The Education of An Idealist for further clarification.

Oh, we support the troops, all right. But wouldn't the best support be to keep them from wasting their time, and their lives?

The pullout has been called a gamble. No, it isn't. The gamble's over. We gambled that we would make a lasting difference. It's been twenty years. Whatever lasting difference has either been established, or won't be if it takes a hundred.

Instead, we leave used up, worn out, worn down. Humbled. What will we learn?

• Don't do this anymore?
• Is this our accepted burden after all, and casualties are the accepted price of limited wars?
• Be more strategic and not idealistic so we pick our spots better?
• Define 'winning' from the start and don't deviate from that? (Meaning we should have left when Osama bin Laden was killed)
• Get the real story first and stick to the facts instead of being awash in hubris, as in Iraq?
• Don't do it alone, or practically alone?
• Do it but with overwhelming force?
• Stop listening to warmongers who think blowing up countries saves them?
• Leave domestic politics out of it, reserving judgment to the President, ignoring the War Powers Act, like most presidents have?
• Let Congress start it, like it says in the Constitution?

Yeah, I know. Give me a better question, then. Or maybe a better answer than any that could be provided to the above.

More than two thousand dead. Take a bucket of water and stir your hand in it. Wait one minute. Goes back to where it was. We waited twenty years.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark