I was in Afghanistan. They had the means with us and NATO. Rather than get serious about ridding themselves of the Taliban and Haqqani, they screwed around trying to get as much out of the US as if we were a permanent piñata they could strike and get candy on demand.
US leadership communicated to the Afghans that we would be there as long as it took......that is why no progress was made. There was a golden opportunity to flip all of the significant imams to a less primitive strain of Wahabbism-- it was drawn up by a U.S. Marine Captain, and it was tested with great success. Then the State Department dropped the program. After the pilot program worked.
I get mad as shit just thinking about it. We had the strategic win, and State and the Barkey administration screwed it up.
As for the killing, it was much too surgical. We were wasting expensive smart weapons like JDAMS on mud buildings. Ridiculous. When a village demonstrably aids and abets terrorists, there are no innocents. If it was good for Dresden, it's good for Afghanistan.
Your reasoning seems a little contradictory, as to where fault lies.
Here:
“US leadership communicated to the Afghans that we would be there as long as it took......that is why no progress was made.”
you seem to point the finger at the Afghans; that thinking we would stay forever they just kept taking us for what they could get.
Then here:
“it was drawn up by a U.S. Marine Captain, and it was tested with great success. Then the State Department dropped the program. After the pilot program worked.”
you point the finger at our own leaders for dropping the ball.
I imagine the truth is there is plenty of blame that can be laid on both sides.
And, I would respectfully disagree that our initial effort and in the immediate short term afterward was ever enough, militarily, to succeed. Why? Only a WWII style offensive would have admitted that as long as the Taliban can get safe haven in Pakistan they do not have to quit fighting in Afghanistan. (A) The Pashtun are the majority on both sides of the southern border Afghanistan has with Pakistan, (B) the Taliban are predominately Pashtun, and (c) the Taliban have religious friends and religious allies all the way up Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan into Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area.
That required a WWII style solution we were not ever going to do. Without that all we could ever hope for was an Afghan government strong enough simply to resist being over run by the Taliban, but THAT would never be enough to get the Taliban to quit, when the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan means nothing to the Taliban and that fact is tolerated by Pakistan.
I will take your point that the Afghan governments had too much corruption, been ineffective, and failed in ways they might have succeeded better.
I would agree that the Afghans trying to stay out of the hands of the Taliban have nearly always been poorly led and led with too many folks who were and are corrupt as well.
I have also seen how loyalty among too many Afghan men of fighting age seems to not have any great foundation in any principles. On one day it may be the Afghan government, and on another day it mat be their clan or their clan leader, and when their clan leader goes Taliban so do they. Loyalty seems very “flexible” and situational in Afghanistan, which is why we had so many of our men lost to “friendly fire” from some Afghan who was “working with us”. In some cases they may have been Taliban sympathizers all along, and in other cases it just didn’t take too much to “turn them”.
However, I agree with you here:
“They had the means with us and NATO. Rather than get serious about ridding themselves of the Taliban and Haqqani, they screwed around trying to get as much out of the US as if we were a permanent piñata they could strike and get candy on demand.”
Yes, the Afghans fighting for the government have always had corruptible (and likely underpaid) leadership. I remember one report of how over 200,000 weapons we supplied to the Afghan military and police had been sold - to the Taliban.
But we have had corrupt allies in the past who managed to hang on and eventually reform. I do contend that is still up to the Afghans, if enough of them don’t want to be part of the Taliban, even if we do keep a very low level of troop support.
In the end it is not and will not be up to us. The Afghans will have to choose. And, my guess, looking at their history, is even a Taliban “win” will not end it, as that will really be a Pashtun win, and again the other ethnic groups will not go along with it. There will be another “Northern Alliance/United Front”.
I think both Iran and Pakistan don’t mind an Afghanistan whose wars are not settled. They both profit from the division and intrigue in Afghanistan.