You're on your own. Plan accordingly.

Several things about the current moment are extremely helpful because they’re clarifying.

1. The President of the United States allegedly rejected the advice of his military and advisors on how to go about the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
2. As a result of rejecting the advice of the military, the Taliban has received a windfall of advanced American weaponry.
3. As a result of rejecting the advice of the military, as many as 11,000 (the latest estimate) American civilians have been left to the mercy of the Taliban, behind enemy lines.

That is the story they would have us believe.  One has to assume that, as bad as it is, it’s almost certainly the best possible face they can put on things.

If it’s all true, then it offers us surprising clarity about our actual situation, and especially about the character of our senior military leadership. Because it turns out that a President can reject the pleadings of the military, leave 11,000 American civilians completely exposed, without a single military leader (so far) being sufficiently appalled by this turn of events to have tendered his resignation.

Think of it. 11,000 Americans were thrown under the bus by this President and not a single one of the senior leadership has bothered to resign in protest.

How clarifying! Not in a good way, of course, but it’s nevertheless better to know now than later – when the feces hits the fan.

I recall having had a similar epiphany during the Russian hoax, cooked up at the FBI as a pretext to investigate Trump. We kept being told by more than a few right-leaning pundits that such behavior was not representative of the FBI as a whole, but reflected merely the behavior of a few bad actors. But, was there any noticeable wave of protest resignations among the FBI rank-and-file over Russia-gate? Notwithstanding the appalling illegality, apparently it didn’t disturb anyone enough at the nation’s premier law enforcement agency for them to make a stink about it.

Many people have been talking about the fact that the Taliban is currently welcome on Twitter but a former U.S. President is not.  Glenn Reynolds re-posted this Tweet over on Instapundit. He remarked that it’s a reminder of who Twitter sees as the enemy.

I’m sure that Reynolds is right about Twitter, but things seem more dire even than that. It’s looking as if it would be foolhardy indeed for any of us to arrange our affairs in such a way that presupposes anyone associated with even the federal government – anyone at all – can be relied upon to have our best interests at heart.

Clarity is helpful, even if it happens to be unpleasant. Now we know, alas, that the highest rungs of the American military are occupied by officers who are more interested in burnishing their careers than their honor.

So if you find yourself in a tight spot, it’s possible - even probable – that no one from the U.S. government is going to help. They will leave you to your misfortune. They might even go back to their vacation after making some brief, self-exculpatory remarks.

You’re on your own. Plan accordingly.