This is from the Army Times, a periodical I have never read, but the narrative on Afghanistan could have come from practically any US news organ, left or right, bemoaning the crisis of this "withdrawal" and the affected Afghanis left at the mercy of the Taliban.

This is strange, tiresome jibberish.

You will never read, except perhaps in People's World that Afghanistan did in fact have a stable government in 1978. That government was led by a party comprised of men and women, the People's Democratic Party. That government developed social and economic programs. That government sought to unify, not exploit as the UK and US have done in the region, the various ethnic groups that make up Afghanistan. That government was bringing women and girls into all areas of social and political life.

But this government was socialist, and that was intolerable.

The women and girls we're supposed to be worried about right now; the civil society we're supposed to worry about right now; the "tribal" tensions we're supposed to worry about right now - all this and much more were brought to Afghanistan by the same force that created it: the United States of America.

The US's response to this progressive, stable government was to create the counter-revolutionary force known as the Mujahedeen, aka, the Taliban. Osama bin-Laden was one of their recruits. The US had to reach deep into the sewer to pull out such a force as would be against all that the People's Democratic Party were achieving. The US and the West have always preferred destabilization and chaos to peace and socialism. That is why it always sides with the most retrograde, reactionary, fascist elements.

So all this public fretting about the fire that our arsonist set is laborious. The self-discipline and deference required by an educated sect of US intellectuals - reporters, think-tank researchers, academics - to handwring about the fate of this West Asian society and never a word about 1978 and what the US did is extraordinary.