If you spend any time sloshing around in the giant colostomy bag for thoughts known as Twitter, you’ll sometimes encounter a phrase, “tweeting through it.” It refers to amusing instances in which an individual, having beclowned hizzorherself, studiously ignores all the mockery and continues tweeting about other topics, hoping for the jeering crowd to lose interest and go away. This seems like a real-world equivalent. Do Western governments seriously believe they can just keep repeating the same mindless bromides about diversity and inclusion to avoid facing up to their humiliating defeat, as if these stupid notions have any purchase outside of the affluent bubble they’ve created for themselves, as if they have any leverage to dictate terms to anyone here? Yes, I’m sure the Taliban’s HR department will get right on that. They certainly wouldn’t want us to invade them again!

What genuinely puzzles me is this: who is the audience for these performative statements? Surely the State Department can’t believe the Taliban cares about Western obsessions with inclusivity and gender-equity. But then, who is supposed to be impressed by this? American citizens? After the sublime display of incompetence, ineptitude, and wishful thinking over the last few weeks, what sort of simpleton listens to this feeble rhetoric issuing forth from an administration with a desiccated, dementia-addled figurehead and feels anything other than mortification? Why do they even bother saying this? Could they actually…believe their own bullshit?