At the
American Greatness website, Michael Walsh writes about the
desirability of getting U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and Syria. He decorates the whole with a title taken from the first Sherlock Holmes story where Holmes greets prospective sharer of bachelor digs Dr. John Watson by saying:
You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.
It isn’t a bad treatment of recent U.S. foreign military adventures, if the subject interests you. Spoiler warning: Walsh blames Bush I and II for our having troops there; a fair cop, in my judgment. A favorite quote:
Both Bushes made the same mistake JFK and LBJ made in Vietnam: thinking that inside every foreigner was an American yearning to get out, when even a cursory glance at the history of Southeast Asia or the Islamic ummah should instantly have disabused them of that notion.
Actually, the peculiar cultural conditions which allow freely elected representative government to flourish are neither widely distributed nor easily created. I fear successful self-government is more hothouse flower than hardy weed.
