he's talking like the point isn't for the americans to be an 800-pound threatened hominid from africa that cannot be mentioned in youtube comments or the algorithm will remove your post and distort every relationship in the country.  divide et impera - and if it's taking too long, they just need more divide. the policeman is there to preserve disorder. a functioning, stable, competitive afghanistan is the last thing that anybody in washington wants.

so, why is biden doing this? i think it's a personal grudge he had against obama. i think he got overruled and smacked down and resented it. and, now he's trying to undo it. and i think that's the actual point.

that said, conflating the end of this war with the removal of troops is a false equivalency. even when or if this war ever ends, american troops will likely remain in the region, unless they're actually driven out - and nobody thinks the taliban can do that. the chinese, maybe. but, nobody wonders when we're going to withdraw from japan anymore, and the long term goal has to be that kind of under-the-radar occupation that just never ends, whether there's a war to justify or not...