I saw an interview today with a Special Forces officer who had contacts in Afghanistan. When Bagram was abandoned and the Afghan military lost air support, they began to panic and threw in the towel. Ghani preparing to leave the country only added to the problem. The Taliban had taken Kandahar and was moving up route 101 in a huge column......air strikes could have decimated the Taliban advance but we did not take advantage of the situation.
Ok say we did that. We launch an air strikes against the Taliban. It would buy us maybe a year. Then we leave. The Taliban will eventually overthrow the corrupt Afghan government. At this rate, we’ll have to be there for another 100 years before the Afghan government would manage to be able to find for itself and that’s being ambitious.