I still favor my own idea. Basically if the people of the country wish to live in medieval times, you make it so. You just destroy every technical vestige of civilization until they are living in that era. All machinery, electronics, generators, etc. Pulverize it all and let them live with the fruits of how they choose to act.
I would try to avoid unnecessary casualties when doing this, so use precision strikes, but the end result is the most important thing.
This has the handy side effect of also preventing them from being a useful harbor or future source of terrorists. Nobody will base themselves in a country with no communications or transport.
Yes and no.
They want modern weapons - RPGs, MGs, ARs, etc. They especially like loot.
But they have no use for the trappings of civilization and civil society: Literacy, law, indoor plumbing, etc.
We went about nation building in the wrong fashion. Afghanis are not suited for any sort of representative government. Basically, we should have found a competent sociopath with a good following, trained and armed his followers, and put him in charge. We make sure that he knows that he will survive and the goodies will keep coming only as long as he enjoys our favor. If he forfeits it, or start courting the favor of others, we destroy him AND his family. (Collective punishment WORKS!)
Then we use our pet sociopath for the ugly tasks we don’t want our soldiers to have do, like exterminating entire villages or even entire tribes for supporting Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We crush the resistance, his thugs kill off the old, the women, and the children (the ones the don’t grab for slaves and concubines).
IMHO, that would have brought the Afghanistan campaign to successful conclusion sooner rather than later.