Worth remembering this:
There was no way for the US to “win” in Afghanistan. The military could take, and given the money hold, territory but the US (and it seems the world) was not into Nation Building. Ever since WWII we have been unwilling to put the effort into building a country up after bombing it down. We pick parachute a few people into office and dole out contracts to money grubbers who follow the army around and cross our fingers, not matter how much we have to hold our nose around our new so-called “allies” in this government. This sort of setup has not ever worked… The closest I guess is the odious military dictatorship in South Korea that eventually was booted out by the South Korean people. I understand the argument for containment of communism after WWII and the unwillingness of the American people to commit to nation building, but the way we do it has not worked out. If we are going to be the world cops and topple rotten regimes we need to have a view of what to do after toppling the rotten regime that does not amount to installing another rotten one and proving that our vision of global democracy under Pax Americana is devoid of any concern for the people in these countries. We long ago lost the moral high ground, and it was not for taking out the bad guys but by replacing them with more bad guys.