Hell in Brussels - coitus interruptus

The Great American Pull-Out

Excerpt from The War Diary of ISAF's Media Operations Centre NATO Headquarters Blvd Leopold III 1110 Brussels, Belgium Thursday, February 2, 2012 9:30 AM Au Repos de la Montagne Montagne de Saint-Job 39 Coffee en route to work. Staggering news from POTUS:  Americans to pull out in 2013!  This is an immense strategic communications challenge. Afghanistan is/was the key to world counter-terrorism, and now it...isn't. Billions spent, lives lost, but it's important to look forward and not back.  11:00 AM SITREP with ISAF and SHAPE.  The French are leaving.  The Canadians have left.  The Brits are thinking about it.  The Germans are seriously pissed off.  All in all, it's looking like the rats are out of here.  3:00 PM Informal discussions. Le 19ième Bar, Hotel Metropole. Stirring speech from the Chief, only slightly slurred. We must present this as a carefully thought-out fuck-up.  Having promoted this whole insane operation by a wholly-owned subsidiary of NATO for some 10 years, advertised widely as essential to the safety of NATO countries, having gazillions of dollars spent in "training" Afghan security forces who turn out in large measure to be tribal opportunists, we now know that none of this matters and the sooner we're out of there the better.  Must look at Brussels housing market.