In... defense... of... Biden (?) Kinda, sorta

 This is horrendous.  That should go without saying, but if modern times teach us anything, it is that nothing really goes without saying.  Things need to be said.  That said, let's step back and try to look at this historic shitshow from a different perspective.  The withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan is drawing obvious comparisons to Saigon.  OK, let's think about that.  When we look at Saigon from something approximating a detached perspective, how do we assess the nature of the error(s)?  The Vietnam War is generally considered to have been a bad idea from the get-go.  We should not have been there.  The domino theory was wrong, it was a stupid proxy war, and we shouldn't have been there.  Our withdrawal was a moment of shame, but it wasn't just the withdrawal, which pales in comparison to the war itself.  How should we have withdrawn, recognizing that the war itself was something in which we never should have been involved?

What about Afghanistan?  We did, in fact, have a reason.  Al Qaeda attacked us.  Not the Taliban, but Al Qaeda.  Yes, there is a distinction, and we did find and kill Bin Laden.  That done, why were we still there?  It would be easy to render historical judgment that US involvement in Afghanistan after that point has been analogous to Vietnam.  That required withdrawal.

And that was Biden's position.  Stated in a manner so cold-blooded and douche-y that I called "douche" on him, and dude.  I'm me.  But if we are actually calling this a Saigon moment, then the judgment on US involvement in Afghanistan, post-Al Qaeda, post-Bin Laden, is fundamentally the position that Biden was taking.

That is a position that one could argue.

That isn't to say this couldn't have been managed better.  Or that we couldn't have saved more lives in the process.  But at the end of the day, whether the Taliban took over today, or six months from now, we are talking Saigon.  And if we're comparing this to Saigon, then we are comparing US involvement to Vietnam.

And that means our asses ought to have been gone.

Biden was cold.  And that was weird.  But if we are doing Vietnam analogies here, follow that through.

What was the right answer?  Look, this is hard.  When you are dealing with a place like Afghanistan, don't pretend you know what to do.  Don't pretend you can solve a problem widely known as "the graveyard of empires."

I can look at Biden's decision from a lot of angles.  That was cold as well-digger's ass.  At the end of the day, though, this was destined for disaster however you cut it.

Could we have saved more lives, though?  Yeah.

Fuck.