True: 300,000 man strong military trained and assisted by America. However, the handful is incorrect. The actual numbers are likely between 75,000 and 100,000 when you count the known Taliban that occasionally worked with the US along with the Al Qeada they were protecting and hiding and all the imported terrorists who saw the planned American absence as an opportunity.

There is also the issue of the motivation levels and the experience levels. Although Americans provided training and support while giving the Afghani military experience, they didn’t give them training or experience in many of the critical capabilities that were provided exclusively by the Americans. American military and political leadership never trusted them fully with capabilities to fully defend themselves.

Why? We have learned from history that providing weapons and training often turns against those providing them (whether providers were Americans or Russians), hence the only choice was to hold back critical resources and keep them dependent upon us for success until they could fully prove their “worthiness”, which would have required a paradigm shift on the part of the Afghanis- this would have taken a minimum of 3 full generations in order to get the majority of the population accustomed to western lifestyles that don’t include tribal warring factions with significant power.

This was never going to happen, since the American people of today are an instant gratification society and could no longer commit to such a long/protracted plan like the 6 decade post-WWII occupation of Germany or even the transformation of the post-WWI Japanese culture that basically left them with a constitution that forbade any forces to be used outside their borders. In both cases, we were their only defense and security until they were fully transformed from a desire to inflict their will on other nations to one that gladly depended on the protection provided by their former enemies and they both gladly submitted to our nation building efforts that rippled throughout their society for generations.

The problem was current results of a “Turn-Tail-and-Run strategy was predicted for over a decade. The military leadership presented this info to the various CiCs and most had the sense to work toward a gradual drawdown that would maintain a foothold on stability and keep the terrorist factions’ aspirations at bay. Only the current Puppet-in-Chief, decided a power vacuum was a good idea despite the predicted outcomes. Ignorance? Or maybe just what he was ordered to do? I don’t know for sure, but it’s clear the world will be ever increasingly less safe as long as Joke Obiden is in the White House.

You may wonder why the generals went along with this Turn-Tail-and-Run plan. That was also predictable. The legislative and executive branch have been playing political games with the military for decades. I remember when Rumsfeld noted that the Generals had too much power and reorganized the military and did away with CinCs and he said there would be only one Commander in Chief. This may have been the right thing to do, but it opened the floodgates for meddling by those who had no clue what they were doing. Generals could no longer fully support ‘Centralized Command and Decentralized Execution’ a method of leading while allowing the next generation to become strong leaders through delegation of tactical missions. Suddenly, micromanagement was required to preclude the generals’ heads rolling over the less than perfect execution of a tactical operation. I remember hearing a general saying he wanted to see everything the pilot could see in his cockpit so he could tell the pilot when to fire on a target. This was after small errors on the part of a captain had led to congressmen making it clear that a general’s head must roll and not the captain that made the mistake. Generals became cowards, always afraid that they would lose their jobs for the mistakes of a subordinate. Field grade officers learned their lessons well as those willing to take a chance were seen saving the day regularly and then when they made a minor mistake in judgment, their careers were destroyed and many were forced out. Now, the vast majority of those who made it to the general ranks are highly experienced at keeping their heads down and agreeing with any stupid idea of their civilian handlers.

That’s just my opinion, of course.

We cannot build other countries. We can occupy, we can even conquer. But we can't want a country to be a nation more than their own people do.

I believe if people understood the real purpose for the $3Trillion occupation of Afghanistan, they would not be so mislead by controlled media around "western morals" and "women's rights", and "democratic styles"...

Afghanistan was part of the 9/11 false flag event to start a phony war on terror, to fulfill specific geopolitical (US NeoCon/Zionist Israeli) objectives. This included Israeli/Saudi military hegemony throughout the middle east, INCIDENTALLY coinciding with Israeli recent gas field discoveries in the Mediterranean (Tamar, Leviathan and Dalit).

This tied into the attempted overthrow of Assad in Syria and the ongoing involvement of several nation's militaries that have Syria in ruins. WHY??? Because Assad is closely allied to Russia. Syria has been allies of Russia going back to the days of his father, Hafiz, and Syria REFUSED to allow a pipeline to cross Syria into Europe. WHY??? Because Syria realizes that allowing the Saudi/Israeli energy pipeline into Europe will usurp Russia's gas market and literally DESTROY Russia's economy!

Back to Afghanistan...

The $3T invasion/occupation price tag was justified by the elites in stopping an energy pipeline system from Iran into China. By keeping China's energy costs high and their reliance on (mostly imported) coal, the west would maintain its economic edge over China, especially as (naively) perceived greater demands for higher wages and rights by a wealthier Chinese working class would bring trade parity in line.

This stopped Iran from growing their economy by 2-3x with the mass influx of Chinese wealth they could spend...

This has recently moved China into the hands of Russia whom they have negotiated long-term energy agreements with. The criticality of Afghanistan to western elites dropped and the justification for the continually rising inflation within the nations they control changed. The elites made their money back in western tax payers buying $3Trillion in weapons from their military industrial complex. Western nations are going to pay for this forever. There is now $3T missing from our economy, in the hands of an even wealthier 0.08% of the world's population

Dumb missles, Smart missles...we can't want a nation to exist in an image that its own people don't want.

Soviets were not only at behind Vietnam, they have, at times fought against and other times supported Afghanis fighters. (As have we)

Yes they did.