Afghan tragedy

U.S. military officials acknowledged Monday that their airstrike was responsible for killing 22 patients and staff members in a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz Tribune

Last week, 13 people died, including six U.S. airmen, when a C-130 transport plane crashed in Jalalabad.

For all the madness and violence in this region of the world, it might be easy to forget at times that we’re fighting a war in Afghanistan a full 15 years after that nation — and this enemy, the Taliban — gave safe harbor to Osama bin Laden …

The Afghan army has shown signs of growing competence, though it has been slow and frustrating.

Kunduz tells the story: The Taliban took the town by surprise and held it for several days, the first capture of a major Afghan city by the Taliban since 2001. The Afghan army struggled to mount a counterattack but managed to retake much of the city center with American support.

And apparently with a grievous error. …

President Ashraf Ghani has been a more reliable, responsible leader than his mercurial predecessor, Hamid Karzai. No doubt President Obama would like to complete the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on his timetable, just weeks before he leaves office in January 2017. But he’s going to have to keep focused on the threat, not the calendar.

The fall of Afghanistan would create more risk for the U.S. and for the world.