I believe the original decision to commit was correct. The performance of the CIA and SF was more than satisfactory. However, the decision to commit the GPF was ill advised and the later decisions to stay and to attempt to rebuild Afghanistan were very bad errors with entirely predictable consequences.

We do not do these things well and have not since World War II -- the world changed and we did not; our Euro-centric focus has not served us at all well. Nor are we now capable of being mean enough; neither can we maintain focus due to our governmental processes. We should avoid such efforts in the future. Just go in, break things, leave quickly and let the locals and the UN fix it with our support -- from a distance...

We do short, sharp and anywhere, anytime pretty well -- we do not have the patience for long hauls. Not to mention that going in somewhere we are not wanted (or, often, needed...) and setting up fire bases or FOBs with large sandbag or Hesco RPG magnets from which we foray briefly (and ineptly, more often than not...) and throw money about with little focused thought is just dumb -- and wasteful. Going is often necessary , staying -- or, more correctly, overstaying -- is almost never even desirable, much less necessary. It was not in Viet Nam, it was not in Iraq and it is not in Afghanistan. As my son said on his fourth or fifth trip to the 'Stan -- I lost count -- "I don't know what this is but it isn't war..."

American Pride is correct, there are few things humans do that are more stupid than war but they are sometimes necessary and are certainly going to occur. As the Marines used to say "Nobody wants a war -- but somebody better know how to fight one." We seem to have forgotten both to 'not want one' and then when we blunder into one, the 'how.'