Thread by @BretDevereaux

Strategic decision-making in a global framework is tough, especially when any decision you make is going to hurt someone, somewhere.

But I'd argue less difficult is the suggestion that the the USA, that we have an obligation to help as many Afghans get out as we can.

After the Fall of Saigon, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese (the 'boat people') fled the new regime. We resettled 402,382 of them; there are now 2.2 million Vietnamese Americans, some from that wave of refugees, some not.

And Vietnamese-Americans are great!

I don't see our responsibility vanishing after the last plane lifts off from the soon-to-be-renamed Hamid Karzai Airport. If the Taliban are half as bad as I think it is reasonable to expect, there will be waves of Afghan refugees. Many of them will be people that helped us.

People with too much education, with the wrong sort of education, people who opposed the Taliban, who helped us.

I think they should come here. I don't know that America has a responsibility to all of the oppressed of the world, but we do have a responsibility to *these* people.

'But what about the Taliban slipping in' - do you really think the Taliban guys are going to bail after fighting for 20 years to get the chance to build their (almost certainly horrifying) ideal religious state...before they even try to do it?

'But do you really want them in your town?' - You know what...yes? Pretty much everyone I know whose been over there has been saying yes, has been pushing ways to help get people out, resettle, etc.

I figure they know these folks better than me.

There are so many things in the world we cannot do. We can't make China stop oppressing the Uighyrs, we can't get the Russians out of eastern Ukraine, and we couldn't make democracy work in Afghanistan.

But we *can* do this. We've done this before.

We should do this.