article_snippet.sent: Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN)It is a strangely detached scene for the close of America's longest war:
article_snippet.sent: And even though the departure of American troops will be fractionally slower, American troops will all be inside the U.S. Embassy by the end of next year, making these some of American troops last weeks outside of the wire.
article_snippet.sent: The intentions, first hatched in 2011 when U.S. had tens of thousands of troops and still large ambitions for their war here, were large in scale.
article_snippet.sent: Like so much in the most costly of wars, it price tag may have made sense in briefings on Capitol Hill, where effectiveness is gauged in millions, but here in dusty eastern Afghanistan, it seems exorbitant.
article_snippet.sent: There are about fifty Afghan police currently on the base -- meaning each one has so far cost $400,000 to the US taxpayer.
article_snippet.sent: On the outskirts of the base are the relics of U.S.'s military involvement in a conflict that still continues to kill Afghan security forces at an accelerated  rate.
article_snippet.sent: Throughout, the surreal changes in how this war was, and continues to be, fought are omnipresent.
highlights_snippet.sent: Final troop pullout oddly detached as U.S. military operations die down in Afghanistan .
  