David Axe, reporting from Baghdad on his blog (as I noted yesterday), discusses the opposition in the Netherlands to keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

At Kamp Holland, the Dutch base in southern Afghanistan, the troops are mourning the loss of a second soldier: 44-year-old Sergeant Major Jos Leunissen, who died in a mortar accident during combat with Taliban forces around the town of Chura on Monday.

. . .

The Dutch Ministry of Defense has been fairly rattled by the two deaths. And judging by all the frantic emails I’m getting from Dutch newspapers and radio programs, the public is pretty shaken, too.

I would never question the courage and resolve of the Dutch soldiers fighting this battle; but the folks back home in The Netherlands seem ready to call it quits and withdraw inside their own borders. As if that were really possible in this globalized world.

He then discusses the desire of an American Special Forces soldier, Army Captain Ken Dwyer, to return to the service to train future combat and Special Forces troops.

David finishes by poignantly urging the Dutch to — for their own security and the world’s — remain in the fight.

Sorry to geek out on you, but Dwyer’s attitude reminds of the final scene of Joss Whedon’s awesome vampire-detective-noir series Angel, wherein our hero and his surviving comrades (pictured), having confronted the forces of darkness and lost many friends in the fighting, stare down an approaching army of giants, dragons and demons. Hefting an axe, sizing up impossible odds, Angel tells his team, “Let’s go to work.”

The Netherlands: you’ve suffered. But your losses don’t diminish the importance of our mission in Afghanistan. So do like Dwyer and Angel: Pick up your axe, face those monsters, and get back to work.