There’s a steady drum beat of how we can’t abandon Afghanistan like we did in the late 1980’s. The end result will be, we’re relentlessly informed, a disaster reminiscent of what led to the rise of the Taliban and empowerment of al Qaeda.

I want to set aside historical reality for a bit and engage in a thought experiment.

Let’s pretend we didn’t abandon Afghanistan and our allies there in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Let’s pretend we kept our moral, financial, military and other support of the then still birthing right wing, international, violent movement we’ve all come to know and love as “jihadis”.

Let’s pretend Osama bin Laden continued to receive the unconditional backing of the US government.

Then let us stop pretending and realize that the only thing we could have done was disassociate with Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. We need to understand the bloody civil war fought among various Afghan warlords (including the Taliban) was the only way power structures were going settle on a future even if led by the brutal Taliban as opposed to the equally brutal war lords of the north, south, east and west.

And then allow that light bulb of understanding to brighten.

We need to “abandon” Afghanistan once again because until the Afghan people themselves settle their internal conflicts there will be no solution. We need to get the hell out of the way because our track record there proves we haven’t a clue as to who in the eyes of the Afghan people is good and who is bad.

We need to get out of Afghanistan because to do otherwise would be to accept that Osama bin Laden should today be our good buddy terrorist.

(that and war really doesn’t solve anything anyway … but that’s a different rant)