So, Prince Harry has decided to speak up again. From his quiet life far away from the rain of London, he is telling us that the soldiers who fought in Afghanistan deserve 'respect.' It is a very nice word, isn't it? 'Respect.' It is the kind of word people use when they have nothing else to give. It is the gold star you put on a child’s homework when the child has failed the test but tried very hard.

The Duke of Sussex is reacting to comments made by the President of the United States. Joe Biden has a way of saying things that make his friends across the ocean very, very angry. This time, he spoke about the end of the war in a way that made it sound like the whole thing was just a box that needed to be checked. For the veterans in the UK and the politicians who love a good reason to be offended, this was too much. They are lining up to say how hurt they are. It is a beautiful performance. We should all clap for the actors.

Let us look at the reality of this situation. We spent twenty years in a country that most people could not find on a map without help. We sent thousands of young people to walk around in the heat and the dust. We spent more money than anyone can count. And what did we get? We got a very fast exit and a lot of speeches. Now, the people who ran the war want to talk about 'respect' because they cannot talk about 'results.' If you go to a restaurant and they burn your food, they don't ask for respect for the cook. They give you your money back. But in the world of global politics, we just give each other medals and hope nobody asks why the kitchen is on fire.

Prince Harry is in a strange spot. He was a soldier. He saw the mess with his own eyes. But now he is part of the great machine that turns tragedy into content. He wants us to remember the sacrifice. And we should. The people who went there did what they were told. They were brave. They lost friends. They lost parts of their bodies and their minds. But the respect they are being offered now feels like a very cheap prize. It is being used as a shield by the leaders who made the mess. If we are all busy being 'respectful,' we won't be busy asking why the war happened or why it ended like a bad movie where the film breaks in the last five minutes.

President Biden’s comments have been called a 'slap in the face' by veterans. This is a favorite phrase of the media. Everything is a 'slap in the face' or a 'stab in the back.' It makes for good television. But Biden is just saying out loud what the bureaucracy has felt for years. To the people in big offices in Washington and London, the war was a project. It was a line on a spreadsheet. When the project became too expensive and too annoying, they closed it. The fact that people are surprised by this shows that they haven't been paying attention for the last fifty years. This is how the theater of the absurd works. The play is terrible, the actors are tired, but we all have to stay until the end and then stand up and cheer.

The UK politicians are especially good at this. They love to act like the younger brother who got pushed around by the big American bully. They say they are 'disappointed.' They say the alliance is 'strained.' They say this as if they didn't agree to every bad idea the Americans had for two decades. It is a cycle of blame that goes nowhere. They want the respect of the public, but they don't want the responsibility of the failure.

So, Harry gives his speech. Biden makes his comments. The veterans get angry. And the world keeps turning. We are told to honor the sacrifice, and we should. But we should also honor the truth. The truth is that 'respect' is a very easy thing to say when you are sitting in a mansion or behind a big desk. It costs nothing. It changes nothing. It doesn't bring anyone back, and it doesn't fix the country that was left behind. It is just more noise in a world that is already much too loud. I told you this would happen. When the dust settled, all we would have left were hurt feelings and empty words. And here we are, right on schedule.