Well, according to what General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said just last week, we did it because of an arbitrary cap on troop numbers in Afghanistan.

“That was all briefed and approved,” General Milley said, “and we estimated that the risk of going out of HKIA [Kabul’s international airport] or the risk of going out of Bagram about the same, so going out of HKIA — was estimated to be the better tactical solution in accordance with the mission set we were given and in accordance with getting the troops down to about 600, 700 number” [emphasis mine].

This is indefensible from a military operations’ standpoint — but President Biden wanted the troops out, so that was that, apparently.

Surely the president wouldn’t be misleading the American people about the reasoning behind the decision. President Biden wouldn’t be passing the buck here, would he? Surely not.