Afghanistan could have only been saved with a MacArthur constitution.
Early on, the US to reconstruct Iraq to western standards that work, but cold footed individuals insisted on trying to save and refurbish parts of the old system, out of “cultural sensitivity”. All the western ideas worked well for a time, until the old, preserved parts proved how rotten they were and tore everything down.
Basically, we removed *some* of the cancer, but left some, out of “cultural sensitivity”.
And Afghanistan was cancerous from its scalp to its toenails.
So what we should have done was very blunt. Since most of the fighters were coming in endless numbers from Pakistan, we needed to shut the border. Though it was a long border, there were only about a dozen serviceable passes in those mountains.
Second, every adult by Afghanistan standards male, without other registered employment, would be employed in huge, national infrastructure projects, including reclamation, building a network of quality roads, irrigation, and rebuilding entire cities.
Because their national wage was tiny, we could afford this. And all their earnings would be sent to their female family. For their part, the women would be entrusted with running their towns and villages, and given training to earn income with small businesses.
The vast number of orphans would be sent to international boarding schools in Kabul, to become a new generation of political, military and business leaders. Taught with western knowledge by good teachers, not UN dregs and perverts.
Their legal system would be Common Law, not the onerous French Code Civil beloved by internationalists.
RE: Afghanistan could have only been saved with a MacArthur constitution..... Basically, we removed *some* of the cancer, but left some, out of “cultural sensitivity”.
You have to ELIMINATE Islam from the culture for that to work. This is an almost impossible task — even more impossible than eliminating from Japan the ancient idea that the Emperor is Divine ( most Japanese don’t even believe that )