During my government-paid vacation to Afghanistan, those we fought against were mostly Iranian or Pakastani, not actual Afghani people. If we did run into an Afghani it was usually a teenager. Given I was there in 2008 and 2012 and not in 2020, the feeling that any pull-out would be messy was already present. The locals didn’t believe we would ever leave, we told them in 2012 we didn’t think we were the right culture to help them out of the darkness and that we wouldn’t stay forever. The United States never invested in Afghanistan, Congress blocked all grain shipments despite military intelligence showing it would result in farmers growing opium. I know for many Americans the only view of the nation was war images, but those of us on the ground saw more than that. The Afghani culture is really cool, they are the best horsemen I have ever seen, deeply caring and understanding. They also are a broken people who don’t view themselves as a nation but as tribes of people. In the end those I met and spoke to were very interested in western culture and we fostered a great relationship. The largest problem they faced was foreigners from the West and South bringing war to their villages and forcing their strict religious rules on them.

I do believe that Afghanistan will never recover, India or China are going to exploit the nation for it’s resources and leave nothing for the people there. Maybe either of those nations will run the Taliban out, but it won’t be anytime soon.