Final q was where @ewarren had a chance to address troop withdrawal and expressed befuddlement at backlash to the Trump decision. "Those against it in the defense establishment need to explain why we're still fighting these wars -- but you do need to have a plan to withdraw."
— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) January 3, 2019
I certainly don't think Trump does anything for the right reasons and imagine anything he accidentally does right will turn to shit, but the "oh no we can't possibly leave any of our sweet wars behind" reaction says a lot about everyone it is coming from. The "foreign policy community" has had 16 years to come up with some vaguely plausible story about what the fuck we're doing in Afghanistan (and almost 14 for Iraq) and they haven't even bothered to try because no one even asks them to anymore.
I used to joke about Iraq that we will stay there until we kill the last person who wants us to leave, then we'll leave. Joke was on me. We'll never leave! Why? The only reason I'm left with at this point is because those mortgages in NoVa aren't going to pay themselves.