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   From: js@phendrie.con   
      
   After enlisting in the U.S. military against his family’s wishes, Chicago   
   native   
   Tom Amenta said he found himself in “middle of nowhere,” Afghanistan, in   
   2002 as   
   an Army ranger in a remote area some 15 minutes from the border with Pakistan.   
   He was fighting the initial battles of a war that few knew would stretch on for   
   20 years.   
      
   Now 40 and retired from the military, he felt anger foam inside as he watched   
   the evening news on Thursday while on a work trip to Pennsylvania.   
      
   Headline after headline broadcast the latest gains by Taliban fighters, who   
   have   
   seized control of more than a dozen of the country’s provincial capitals as   
   the   
   Afghan government inches closer to collapse in the final days of the U.S.   
   withdrawal. He was riveted in horror by news of fighters committing suspected   
   war crimes against civilians or Afghan troops.   
      
   Friends who had been killed there came to mind, including NFL star Pat Tillman.   
   Fond memories of former Afghan colleagues, such as interpreters, who remained   
   in   
   the country and whose fates he didn’t know, also resurfaced.   
      
   “It makes me angry, really angry,” Amenta said of the U.S. withdrawal,   
   lamenting   
   the billions upon billions of dollars spent on the war effort. Not to mention   
   the emotional, financial and human toll suffered by thousands of Americans who   
   served or had sent their loved ones to fight in Afghanistan.   
      
   Afghanistan “has never had a clean solution. But now that it’s gotten hard,   
   we’re just going to bounce? It doesn’t make it right,” he said in a   
   phone interview.   
      
   Amenta is one of many veterans across the world voicing frustration over the   
   Taliban’s faster-than-expected comeback, reflecting how deeply the conflict   
   resonates throughout the world. Around four dozen countries have sent troops in   
   support of the United States, which with 2,300 killed while serving, has   
   spilled   
   the most amount of blood in the war excluding Afghanistan itself.   
      
   Amenta recounted memories of Jay A. Blessing of Tacoma, Wash., a goofy friend   
   and fellow Army ranger who used to put hot sauce on everything: “I mean,   
   literally everything. He put hot sauce on ice cream.” Blessing was killed by   
   an   
   improvised bomb in 2003 in Asadabad, Afghanistan.   
      
   “I mean, why did my friend get blown up? For what?” said Amenta, who has   
   recently spoken to nearly six dozen veterans from the post-9/11 wars to write a   
   book that’s to be released next month.   
      
   https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/13/afghanistan-vete   
   ans-war-taliban/   
      
   His friend was killed for nothing.  He and all the others killed in Afghanistan   
   died in vain, exactly like the 58,000 killed in Vietnam.  Everyone knew the   
   outcome we're seeing was inevitable.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)