Why Afghanistan, Anyway?

Matt Steinglass:

Afghanistan is a tiny, economically irrelevant country halfway around the world that has never had a stable central government. I don’t think the likelihood of our creating a stable, self-sufficient, non-Taliban government there is very good. And I don’t think the benefits of creating such a government, to the US, are really so high. And I think even the benefits of creating such a government for Afghans have been overstated. But let’s say we have a 75% chance of being able to do it. There is surely a maximum price tag at which we are willing to value that outcome. What is it? Nobody will even talk about this.

At $6.7 billion a month, we're paying a lot for this bizarre sideshow.