IN THE NEWS
Doctors Without Frontiers (Medecins Sans Frontieres) is pulling out of Afghanistan.
They have good reasons. Someone, most likely the Taliban (who was certainly eager to take credit), has been killing its staff. No aid organization should require its workers to put their lives at more-than-likely risk, so MSF has decided to leave for the time being.
How many layers of tragedy can you stomach? The immediate loss of much-needed medical care? The continued anguish of Afghanistan? The fact that the United States left the remaining work in Afghanistan unfinished, underfunded, and unrecognized? The cycle of neglect that, as soon as Afghanistan stops being immediately important to us, we leave?
The truth is, Afghanistan is still immediately important. The Taliban and al Qaeda are still there. The country is still a major opium producer. Warlordism is still a source of instability and, perhaps more importantly, outrage and despair. The job's not done, and because of the US government's indifference, we've lost another ally who might have helped the Afghanis and the Americans out of a shared nightmare.
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