Here are two things about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan that can be simultaneously true. One, that it preciptated the transition of power to a brutal, primitivist government. And two, that in twenty years of being there, the U. S. A. Never managed to find a way of changing things for the better in any way that promised to outlive their presence. U. S. Retreat was a defeat; but sometimes, you just have to acknowlege that you've lost. This BBC documentary does all the things you expect BBC doumentaries to do: interview those who were there, making the decisions on the ground. Except that it only interviews a narrow range of actors: almost everyone who speaks had an interest in keeping the U. S. involved. While they may rail against the supposed perfidy of succesive U. S. presidents, none of them are asked to explain how continued U. S. presence would have fixed things. Biden et al. Are blamed for the defeat, when arguably all they did was acknowledge that the battle had been lost long before. There's a term for the American foreign policy/military establishment that testifies to the pervasiveness of its influence: "the blob". And this is Blob TV, not because what it tells us is false, but because it doesn't tell us that sometimes, sadly, you just can't have nice things.
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