The Afghan people don’t care about Afghanistan as a country. All they care about is the village or valley where they live. The afghan army and police are worthless and wouldn’t do crap when we went on joint missions, until we gave them fuel, food and water and the first sign of insurgents they were heading back to their barracks.
When I first got in country, my mindset was we need to help these people. 1-2 months in it was kill every male over 10 years old and the country may have a chance. 3-4 months in it was kill every male and 5-6 months in it was kill them all.
That country doesn’t provide one positive to the world as a whole and if it was wiped off the map, nobody would ever notice they were gone.
They are the most ungrateful people I have every had the unfortunate experience of meeting and unless you were giving them something they hated us. Actually they hated us even when giving them things, but they would act like they liked us. I wish I had a dollar for every time we would be driving down the road and a group of young kids would run to the road waving and giving us a thumbs up. When they realized nothing was going to be thrown to them, the thumbs up changed to them shaking their fist at us or flipping us the finger.
Churchill had it correct—nothing but tribes with flags loyal to the highest bidder . . . or words to that end when referencing Mideast. . Similar mindset. No concept of nation-state.
Do not forget Gen Powell non-sense of : you broke it you fix it. Just justification to remain involved indefinitely. Probably pleased the swamp for decades.