We went into Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden, not the Taliban. They just refused to give him up.
We stayed long enough. Too long. At least they've had 20 years of knowing what it would be like under a more modernized democracy (if heavily corrupt), and a whole generation educated from birth to adulthood.
It's their fight now. We shouldn't have let the mission creep into nationbuilding in the first place. We should have used Osama bin Laden's death as justification for total withdrawal.
They clearly are struggling in "their fight." It's simply morally unconscionable to abandon the Afghan people to this fate, especially since they have now experienced democracy. Quite frankly a lot of the debate over the Afghanistan withdrawal especially among the American left is quite selfish in the fact that they seem to not really care that life for many Afghanis, especially women and those of minority ethnic groups, will get worse under the Taliban, and just seem to excuse that with some version of "war bad."
I'm actually usually ok with humanitarian interventions. But this is too much for too long. The current method isn't work, the fight must move beyond military action for now.
If we want to permanently enforce our way of life on them, let's just annex them and declare them a new state, add a star (or a few) to the flag. Would you support that?
Yes, at least now a whole generation has now experienced democracy. So if the Taliban retakes the country, it will eventually fall or modernize, and this time with a more organic movement led by their youth, not propping up a corrupt government that no one seems willing to fight for.
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