Twenty years ago what went on in Afghanistan affected our lives here in America.

B Kean, the point is that we did go down that road of taking on Afghanistan and trying to rebuild it. That was very ambitious from the begining and I recall being alarmed at the time of the U.S. action.

That said, we did what we did and had small but significant success in bettering the lives of many Afghans -- especially women.

With Biden's action we have thrown those small successes into the dust (as you may put it). This did not have to be. We had managed to get our efforts there into a configuration that was generally not costing American lives and at a financial cost the U.S. could easily afford. The brunt of soldiering (apart from Afghan) had been moved to NATO special forces.

Biden decided to cut and run leaving people in peril. and sending a dreadful message to both our allies and foes. And, longer term security issues for us back in the U.S. are uncertain.

As Robert Gates has said, Joe Biden -- nice guy, but for all his 40 years in Washington has managed to get it wrong on every major foreign affairs decision. Writer Richard Ben Cramer offered "JoeBiden had balls" and "More balls than sense".

A GOD AWFUL day in American history.

Best to you