[PapaBear3625]

They never were given all the means needed to totally annihilate the Taliban in the first place, which would have required to conduct ourselves in the Afghan-Pakistan region as we did in WWII, where no targets were off limits and no resoucres were denied to our troops - total war for total victory.

Our only route to supply our troops in Afghanistan went through Pakistan, which meant we either had to keep the Paks happy, or go to war with them too.

[Wuli]

“Our only route to supply our troops in Afghanistan went through Pakistan, which meant we either had to keep the Paks happy, or go to war with them too.”

No. The Pakistan route was our choice. Once we had Bagram we did not have to keep using Pakistan; Pakistan which always harbored the Taliban. The PakistAn route instead of Bagram also meant long and dngerous truck transport into Afghanistan from Pakistan. We should have built up Bagram from the beginning.

Why did we use Pakistan? They got to pretend they were helping us and using them meant we were spending tons of money in Pakistan. The deep state at the State Dep loved that.