Biden tries to make Americans feel the costs of a war that few of them were paying

Unfortunately for that argument, it’s not clear that Americans who didn’t already appreciate those costs and risks now will. It’s also not clear how uniformly those who could tangibly appreciate them — the troops who’ve served in Afghanistan, their families and, of course, the quiet economy of consultants and corporations that steadily consumed those hundreds of millions of dollars — support how the conflict was truncated, if at all. Members of that latter group almost certainly don’t, which, to a large extent, is why the war lasted two decades in the first place.