Mistake #1: Going into Afghanistan absent the will to kill every last person in that country.
In 4,000 years of history every single army that has entered Afghanistan has been subjected to a meat grinder because the invader was unwilling to annihilate the Afghans.
Anyone not willing to annhilate those people needs to stay out or else they should not be surprised when they learn the same painful lessons as every invader since Alexander.
We could have taken Afghanistan quite well, had politicians not dithered the damned thing to failure.
It’s been that way for a long time now.
Actually, the Rooskies were doing a good job in the ‘80s before the American Stinger missiles made the helicopter gunships ineffective.
Please don’t take this personally, but I disagree with your characterization of our action in Afghanistan as a “meat grinder”.
Iwo Jima was a “meat grinder”. We lost as many men each day on iwo Jima as we have lost on average in an entire year, each year since we have been in Afghanistan.
Our military have done an excellent job under the circumstances they have been asked to serve in, especially the way they have been increasingly stabbed in the back and asked to do ever more worthless missions since the Democrats took power in 2006.
Given how they are being increasingly ignored, underfunded, handcuffed and betrayed by the civilian (and some of their own) leadership, we should have brought them home in 2006.
... aka a Constitutional declaration of war. But then that would require our leaders to have the will to vaporize every last person in Afghanistan.