The weird views of liberal Americans on foreign policy vis a vis Afghanistan have plenty of precedent from past conflicts. Sam Schulman explores the history in We Who Are About to Bug Out Salute You

The intellectual and practical defects of our Afghanistan policy are bizarre and difficult to understand. But our pro-Taliban policy has a more obvious moral defect (you are excused from the discussion here, Professor Walt), which has evinced a nearly unanimous lack of interest on the part of our own media and political elites. It seems like only yesterday that we applauded the emergence of Kabul’s women and girls from the shadow of Taliban rule; it was only yesterday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed never to let that era return. But our normally stalwart and reliable humanitarian community, and our even more predictable feminists, seem completely to have forgotten the fate of Afghanistan and its women as Obama has gradually revealed his intention to negotiate with Taliban officials.

More >>