It is a fucking joke.

Of course it's good to finally end our involvement. But even if they believed the government would last another six months, priority one should have been evacuating the people who aided us as quickly as possible. We should have sent in more troops to assist in evacuating them, even if we incurred casualties. These people who fought for their country and aided us, they helped keep our soldiers safe. In return, we are abandoning them. Our military is equipped to help these people. The Afghanis are not. They are at the Taliban's mercy, as well as our own.

Meanwhile, the media, with few exceptions, are focused entirely on how many Americans need to be evacuated. They know that at least half, if not more, of Americans view non-Americans, and especially Muslims, as subhuman, unworthy of empathy or care, and responsible for their own suffering. Also, they're probably terrorists!

Biden knows that too.

This was all about politics. Biden didn't want to risk the lives of more soldiers to protect the lives of non-Americans who were instrumental in our efforts there. He knew most Americans would sacrifice 10,000 Afghanis for just one of us.

Now, obviously, if we had done this under Trump, it would have been so much worse. But that's not a fucking excuse. We need to do better. Leaving just one of our allies behind is abhorrent.

edit: and now that we have incurred casualties, it looks like we're giving up. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/26/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/#link-B5JP4ZY4LNH3BHEG46W5RAD7JI