Thread by @Pinboard

It's striking how in all the discussion around pulling out of Afghanistan, there's been so little mention in the US media about how Afghans feel about it, or what it will mean for them. South Vietnam learned this lesson the hard way—when America is ready to go, boy do they bail.

There's the sunk cost fallacy—the fact that we've wasted 20 years on a stupid war is more reason to stop it, not less. But there's also an obligation you incur when you occupy a country for that long, to the people whose lives are intertwined with your presence, for good or bad

Missing from much discussion of the Middle East and Central Asia is the fact that it's full of intelligent human beings, with agency not a geopolitical chess board, and maybe talking and listening to them more would be a way out of the senseless futility of the last 20 years

I'm sympathetic to the idea of admitting Afghans and Iraqis as refugees, but maybe they want to be something other than refugees? Tempting as it is to say "just end the wars", it's not too late to start treating people with respect and giving them some agency in ending those wars

If you've seen good reporting, whether news or essays or books, from Afghanistan on the Afghan perspective, I'd love to read some. Please post!

Here is a trailer (via @zygmuntzajac) for what looks like a phenomenal 10-episode travelogue by a Polish couple hitchhiking through Afghanistan. Audio is in Polish (and Dari, and Russian, and an Afghan speaking Polish...) but there are English subtitles