National security and honoring our values: Montana and Afghanistan

The fall of the Afghan government and the return of the Taliban has left policymakers and the public grasping for answers and apportioning blame. The deaths of 13 U.S. servicemen and -women and 170 Afghans at the Kabul Airport punctuate this tragic state of affairs. Many ask how the Afghan government, after an injection of $89 billion over 20 years, could collapse so quickly. Critical to this debate is Montana’s support for our veterans — as well as the Afghan people.

We tend to assign failure to anyone who easily concedes or changes sides, like the Afghan Army. What we may not see is the prem...