lmao no they didn't, they kept the majority of their command, control, and logistics base in Pakistan, where the US couldn't reach them. You think it's an accident that Osama Bin Laden was caught a stone's throw from Pakistan's major military academy? When you have an enemy who's vital rear areas can never be assailed, even if you vaporize his army he'll have all the time in the world to just build another one.
With the exception of Haqqani, every Taliban Leader who went to Pakistan in 2001 to 2006 was arrested and turned over to the US. Mullah Omar stayed in Afghanistan and lived right under the US's nose. He spent the rest of his life on a spiritual bender.
The overwhelming majority of the Taliban Leadership and rank and file stayed in Afghanistan, operated within 50 miles of their homes, built up local support and civic engagement, and outgoverned the Central Afghan Government by simply not being corrupt. There was a core of 40,000 Taliban backed by 10,000 to 20,000 Foreign Fighters who actively engaged the Afghan Army and NATO Forces across the country, but primarily the Afghan Army who alone they actually had to defeat. NATO was irrelevant and was unable to provide governance.
This exact same thing happened in Korea, Iraq, and Vietnam. Korea is especially notable because the Chinese Army actually joined the war directly against America. With Iraq, the "civil war" was mostly foreign fighters trained and equipped in Iran. Iran even mass-produced off-road EFP mines to send over the border. (Many of the same people who were in power and did absolutely nothing to punish Iran for this - or even rewarded them for it - would later screech their heads off when Trump turned Soleimani into meaty gibs. Make of that what you will.) Now review the scorecard:
Most IEDs were produced in Iraq using unexploded ordinance and machine shops. Youtube is replete with various insurgent groups showing off how they used unexplode US ordinance against the US, made home made rockets, ect. Iran's role was coordination and basically co-opting the Iraqi Government, getting the US to pay for it, and brazenly looting US military supplies with impunity. That and getting away with raiding a US base, kidnapping US soldiers and then executing them in cold blood to send a message.
Korea: Now highly stable and... about as healthy a democracy as any SE Asian nation has managed (lol Japan) at the cost of decades of permanent military presence to guard them, adding up to untold trillions of dollars over the years since the Armistice. Oh, and a nuclear entanglement potential, too.
No thanks to the US, South Korea is good and stable because they got their shit together and have a larger military than North does, hell if they get nukes, we can even leave them be.
Vietnam: War was actually won, and then the government we supported and defended collapsed... after Democrats gained control of Congress and promptly chopped the funding support, throwing away everything thousands of Americans died for.
We lost decisively to the North who militarily ejected us from the Laotian Border, Cambodian Border, and DMZ, plus seized the port of Dong Ha and got to keep it in the Paris Peace Accords, cementing their dominance from that point on. No amount of spin changes the fact the North got to keep all their gains in the south.
Iraq: Actually, unambiguously won. Twice, first against Iran, then against ISIS. We won the prize, though not many people think it was worth the cost, given how much military modernization is yet to be done and the ever-nearer conflict with China. On the silver-linings side, Trump was in just long enough to prevent the usual fuckheads from making Kurdistan a permanent vassal state with an equally permanent US military commitment; because apparently one Korea isn't enough!
No we did not, we got suckered into a proxy war with Iran in which we footed the entire bill while Iran laughed and looted us blind. At the end of the day, they hold Iraq and Syria, got us to pay for it, and laughed.
Now, look at all that, and tell me - what do you think Putin's chances in Ukraine are, with fuel, food, medical supplies and weapons pouring into Ukraine through Poland?
A pittance to what Ukraine needs and with the transport and fuel networks being blown, is already unable to reach areas. Farmers have to use rope pulleys just to get supplies across blown bridges and rivers. Ukraine has to allocate fuel carefully as it keeps getting blown up, which limits where they can even counter-attack.
Y'see, the tragedy of Afghanistan is that it could have gone very differently. If you want to fight a forever war, you have to
fight it AS a forever war. You commit to a strategy that you can afford to maintain indefinitely. In Afghanistan's case, that means you set up shop in that one province the Taliban never did manage to subjugate, and let the Taliban "have" Afghanistan. And every now and then you send some high-speed-low-drag boys outside the wire in the dark of night and they come back with a few severed heads. If the Taliban want Afghanistan? Let them have it! Let
them run constant patrols. Let
them keep one eye on the sky, always wondering if there's a Reaper with a laser paint on their dome. That's a cheap way to fight. The Taliban were able to fight asymmetric war for two decades with RPGs and rifles, and if it had taken 40 years for more pressing spending priorities to crop up for the Americans, they could've done that, too. But have you seen asymmetric war with the toys
we have? With Switchblade drones and Javelin missiles and- oh. Well. I guess you have
now, haven't you?
None of those toys made a difference, the Taliban figured out how to avoid them and they wound up killing civilians and turning the Civilians against us. Also Javelins in the current conflict are being captured in such numbers, the Russian can spare some for familiarization training.
We have enough people who drink their own Kool-Aid and do their own stashes, don't be another.
