This is not a US war. Sure, we were the power that put the Northern Alliance on top of the heap, and yes, sadly we have dedicated ourselves for over a decade to artificially sustain them there. But the failure to evolve and extend governance to those vanquished belongs to the Government of Afghanistan.
Not only has the Government of Afghanistan proven itself to be a complete failure at doing anything other than working to protect their Northern Alliance monopoly, they have made no effort to do so and are rather shameless in that fact. This is an "all or nothing" culture, and currently they are the ones that have it all and are quite happy to have ISAF out holding off the rest of the populace while paying GIRoA Billions for the opportunity to do so.
The US has many reasons to feel stupid for the past 10 years, but no reason to feel "defeated."
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