
America's longest war is ending. A nation is left wondering whether it was all worth it.
CNN
America's "forever war" in Afghanistan outlasted the first three commanders in chief of this century. But this week, Joe Biden is set to become the President who imposes closure on the US' role in the bloody, intractable conflict.
Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks -- plotted by al-Qaeda from Afghan soil -- plunged the United States into a fractured graveyard of empires, the US pull-out will be complete within days, multiple military sources told CNN. As many as 1,000 troops could remain to guard the American embassy in Kabul, and to protect the airport -- a lifeline for the fragile government and its armed forces who are destined to carry on fight the perpetual war that raged before the US arrived and will continue after it leaves. But the American operation -- launched by President George W. Bush when New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon lay in ruins -- is functionally over.
The retired Air Force general announced as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump after the abrupt Friday night firing of his predecessor is a respected career F-16 pilot who is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center.”

Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.