Many Americans wish U.S. servicemen and women weren’t involved in the hot war in Afghanistan.
We lament the casualties as American troops try to deal with a variety of insurgent elements.
We are saddened by the huge cost of that military action.
We wish we had never had to be involved.
We wish it were all over — satisfactorily — not with U.S. surrender to hostile forces that surely would cause worse and much broader troubles.
But it was ridiculous for some members of the U.S. House of Representatives to call legislatively this week for an irrational withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.
Wishing won’t make it so, or sensible.
We have about 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and may have 100,000 there soon, without any immediate prospect of solution and safe withdrawal. But military policy — in the middle of a hot war — is rarely wisely made by politicians in Congress.
Nevertheless, 65 members of the House of Representatives unreasonably voted Wednesday to pull U.S. troops out without satisfactory solution, while 356 representatives reasonably voted to continue to face a bad situation to keep it from getting worse.