^{(Art by Natalie Kadish, www.chabad.org)}

A dear friend posted something on Facebook the other day, and it has given me pause to think. I won’t quote it directly, but the gist of it was ISIS-K was the responsible party in the deaths of the 13 US personnel at the Kabul Airport, and they are the ones we should hold accountable, and he takes offense at the people using those deaths to make political points.

I can’t say I disagree with him. But…

ISIS-K is the terrorist faction in Afghanistan, and they took credit for the suicide bomber responsible for the 13 American deaths along with the 164 (at last count) non-Americans killed. If you’ve read my past posts, you know that I believe that the responsibility for a violent assault lands squarely on the person or persons who carry out that violent assault, and anyone who planned and directed it. So, yes, ISIS-K is where our ire should be directed, who should be made to pay for this unconscionable, heinous act.

A day later a US drone took out a high-ranking ISIS-K official, and a day after that one blew up a car bomb heading for the airport, again to disrupt the evacuation flights. Sadly, between the missile and the explosives in the car, in addition to the terrorists several civilian bystanders were killed. The Taliban condemned the US actions, even though ISIS-K is supposed to be their enemy, and even as they celebrated our departure on the 31^st.

And as the last of our military flew out of Kabul on the 31^st, in addition to tens of millions of dollars worth of perfectly operating small arms and non-operational aircraft, they left behind a few hundred US citizens who had been promised transport out of the country, and who knows how many of our Afghan helpers we had also promised to take with us, who are now left to the tender mercies of a regime known for the brutal executions of anyone they think may have worked with Coalition forces or the former Afghan government. A regime that has a list of the Afghans who wanted to leave the country for that very reason. A list we apparently gave them.

There is so much wrong here. So many missteps. So many mistakes.

I am not sorry we’re out of Afghanistan. It was this generation’s Vietnam, and we botched Afghanistan in a very similar way. We had no business there after Al Qaida was eliminated, but we stayed to build a nation in our image – a nation nobody there wanted, or could really understand; they were and are too locked into tribal factions and generational hatreds, and wholesale corruption. That was our biggest mistake, ignoring this, trying to force our way of life onto a culture far removed from our own, who did not and do not have the foundations to support that kind of societal change. And it’s a mistake we keep making because nobody is interested in learning from history.

Yes, it was on Biden’s watch that we left Afghanistan. Rah. But how we left was one mistake after another, culminating in a last-minute scramble and broken promises made to American citizens and our Afghan allies by the President. Promises broken because of how the exodus was mishandled.

The Biden spokespeople say they have an agreement with the Taliban for safe passage out of Afghanistan for our citizens and our allies. That the Taliban had actually escorted Americans to the airport, secretly, during the airlift out. Given the Taliban’s history of not living up to agreements, though, forgive me if I don’t hold my breath, and not be surprised to learn of future executions. Executions that should haunt this administration to their dying days.

No, neither Biden nor the Taliban are to blame for the deaths of those 13 Americans and 160-some allies waiting to be airlifted out. ISIS-K is, and there should be reprisals sufficient to cripple that terrorist faction.

But as for the rest of it…