The excellent article <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/20/the-art-of-the-phony-peace-deal/" source="CounterPunch" author="Nicky Reid">The Art of the Phony Peace Deal</a> expresses strong suspicions that the co-called peace deal with Afghanistan that should see the removal of US troops is instead chock-full of the standard caveats and conditions that US loads upon its vassal states. The only real fix for America's hyper-militarism begins at home, with its people no longer supporting it. <bq>Look, dearest motherfuckers, I don’t like to be the killjoy here, I really don’t. But when you cut deals with an empire that runs on perpetual violence, you’re really doing little more than shaking hands with the devil, and that fucker can give you way worse woes than the coronavirus. The only deal you can make with a bully state as colossal as the one I exist in that can possibly lead to anything remotely resembling peace is the kind that says get the fuck off my lawn or your Yankee ass is grass. <b>This kind of peace only happens when American anti-imperialists assist their comrades overseas by putting our knee on Uncle Sam’s throat like we did to get out of Nam. Anything else is just an inevitable imperial shakedown.</b> (Emphasis added.)</bq>