The Hard Choice in Afghanistan

Rachel Maddow did what 99.9 percent of cable news babblers and professional pundits who pronounce on Afghanistan never do: she went there. To Kabul, at least. She asked questions. She saw with her own eyes and heard with her own ears and smelled with her own nose what's going on over there.

And Thursday night she concluded this:

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The administration's argument for staying in Afghanistan and what to do there is logical. It's an argument I understand. As a liberal, I believe in the social contract -- that people can collectively, through government, protect themselves, address problems, and reach for greater things than they could achieve alone, or with only their families. I get it.

I also saw eye-to-eye with the incredibly impressive American troops who are trying to implement the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. They are earnest, capable, professional, and they understand the mission and its value. It makes sense. And it depends on a premise that is romantic, and unproven, and, I believe, unlikely.

SNIP

If we can't make the outcome we want come to fruition, then we should fund and train and support the Afghan government all we can. But each additional American life sacrificed to a goal we know we won't reach is a moral outrage -- a moral disaster -- that we have a responsibility, in this life during wartime, to stop.

Dollars, yes. Lives? Lives? No. Not for a romantic wish. Not for something we want but know we won't get. Dollars, OK. Lives, no.

Full transcript here.

Yesterday, Kentucky buried Pfc. Michael S. Pridham, its 93rd casualty of the Iraq/Afghanistan clusterfuck. Two more Kentuckians killed in Afghanistan have yet to come home. Ninety-five in seven years. Five in 20 fucking days.

Not one more dime. Not one more life.