....”We should have turned Afghanistan into a parking lot in 2001”......
Wouldn’t have been hard to justify that after 9/11. Instead the US believes it can “change” the mindset of a nation and it’s Government when in fact most in the nations don’t want it changed.
Taliban war lords and other tribal leaders will always use violence to gain power there. It’s their culture. I say bring all our guys home and bomb all their camps.....done deal til the next batch rises to the top and then bomb them.
Well — it (changing a nation’s mindset) can sometimes be done, and has been. Post WW2 Japan, for example. But to do it you have to beat the population to a pulp, and probably have to demonstrate willingness to use even stronger measures (nukes, in the case of Japan.)
Modern Western sensibilities make this unacceptable - at least for now. When we lose a city, or generally suffer significantly, that may change.