“This morphed into nation building We had not choice. The Taliban/Al Qaeda WAS their government and social structure. When we took them out we HAD to leave something in its place.”
Hello? The Taliban are still there and they arn’t going away. The Afghans are who they are, a tribal people, and there is no way to force another, alien system on them.
Mostly importantly, it isn’t the responsibility of the U.S.A. to leave anything for those people. One thing we should definitely do for ourselves is burn the poppy fields - destroy the source of so much human suffering. Have you noticed? That hasn’t been done.