Charles Lane: Atmosphere to Terribly Moving Moments on 9/11 Might Have Been Different Had Afghanistan Departure Gone More Smoothly

EXCERPT:

LANE: "And it goes to the point about what we have given up by leaving Afghanistan, namely that on the ground, in- country presence, including the support of a friendly government, indeed a dependent government, to make sure that our intelligence is more accurate. On the subject, it leads you to the atmosphere that surrounded all those terribly moving moments yesterday. How different it might have felt if either we had not left Afghanistan yet or if the departure had gone more smoothly and more nobly. Of course, I think that's what President Biden had in mind when he embarked on the withdrawal of coming to this date in a much more celebratory mode. But, instead, we're left to contemplate a lot of these dilemmas that will — that will linger. And that, I think, must have contributed — certainly did in what I saw — to the — to the feeling of melancholy and frustration that did prevail all day yesterday."