Here's a fun fact for you. Did you know Afghanistan's lowest point and Elkhorn City's elevation above sea level are only 50 feet apart?
Not that that has anything to do with anything or is any kind of statement about Afghanistan or Elkhorn City, both perfectly nice places if you can avoid the pistol packin' preachers.
You should know the lowest spot in Afghanistan is 50 feet higher than Elkhorn, 846 to 791 feet above sea level. On the other end, Afghanistan's highest place scrapes 24,580 feet. I'll go ahead and point out that's a bit higher climb than Birch Knob.
In a lot of ways, if you had about a Texas size swath of Pike county, you'd have Afghanistan. Just add the high peaks. It's all ridge and holler with a few tight river valleys thrown in. Pretty equivalent firepower, I'd say, too.
Imagine trying to invade and occupy that?
I've never been to Afghanistan. But I like to think about its geography and how similar our two places really are.
All I ever really learned about Afghanistan came while playing Tuesday night Risk in Dr. Richard Castle's basement. Ask Billy D Williams, who loved to get his hands on the country and wait everyone out. You didn't always win when you held Afghanistan to start, but you rarely lost, either.
On the Risk board, it is the crossroads between Europe and Asia with easy access to Africa through the Middle East. In reality, it is all those things but with an extreme topology that makes crossing it nearly impossible in the best conditions.
Afghanistan has been called the place empires go to die. That's probably too simplistic, but still accurate. The entirety of the country has never truly been governed. Tribes, war lords and caliphates have ruled remote populations within its borders for centuries.
Now the United States is the latest empire that has failed miserably to exert order upon a landscape that sprouts chaos. What we're seeing might have been the outcome no matter what we did.
But maybe not. For the record, I believe losing Afghanistan was guaranteed when we got distracted by Iraq. If you're going to impose order upon chaos, you better maintain focus for a long time after you think you've succeeded.
If we'd maintained the work in Afghanistan solely we might have succeeded. But Dick Cheney had other plans which strengthened the hand of the Taliban in the long run.
The play of the Afghan government was later guaranteed when Trump showed just how bad the art of the deal can be by negotiating with the Taliban without them. The Taliban takeover might have been inevitable, but it would not have been so quick if Donald poisoned the government and withdrew all but 2500 troops.
Which brings us to Uncle Joe. He and Donald Trump were right that we needed to get out of there. I'm sure they both thought the Afghan military would be fine to sacrifice themselves long enough to get everybody out.
But for a guy who's burned most of Trump's playbooks during his short time in office, you'd think he'd use his own gameplan on this one, too.