Such people are living in a fantasy world, one in which it is possible for Americans to tame Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the American military remaining in Afghanistan would have been a fool’s errand. Even Pyrrhus of Epirus would have known better than to remain there.

In the TMV post Afghanistan: Taliban victory inevitable despite the trillions the US poured in, Natasha Lindstaedt writes, “And yet, while many may criticise US President Joe Biden for pulling forces out, there is little likelihood, given all these regional forces at work, that the US could ever have achieved stability in Afghanistan – no matter how long it stayed.”

U.S. Air Force veteran Ethan Brown writes, “Too much blood and treasure for so little gained. I spent almost three years of my 11-year military career on the ground in Afghanistan. From my first deployment (2011) to my last (2019), nothing changed. It was because of short term policies that failed to understand the environment, cut losses or establish a long term presence to bolster the region and affected states and enable Afghan stakeholders to have some semblance of self-determination.”

Brown also writes, “Let the Afghans sort it out. It is their country, and if they want legitimate governance, 20 years of American efforts scarcely moved the needle. They must assert self-determination or remain subjected to brutal rule. Either way, the onus is not on the United States to hold together the thousands of tribes who are naturally inclined to disaggregate by ethos unless existential threat unites them.”

According to the people who want the U.S. military to remain, America is responsible for the health and well-being of all Afghan people, as well as responsible for maintaining the Afghan Army.

Afghanistan is not America’s responsibility.

The hand-wringers have the wrong idea about the mission of the U.S. Department of Defense, and they are naïve about the environment in Afghanistan. As Ethan Brown writes, “We cannot dictate sovereignties for those who refuse to self-determine their own futures.”

American journalist Lucian K. Truscott IV was stationed in Afghanistan during which time he got to know the Afghan environment. He writes the following:

“Afghanistan didn’t have a functioning government, but rather a bunch of people with official titles who were paid to do what we told them. Afghanistan didn’t have a functioning army, it had a uniformed gang of men we gave M-16s and taught how to march and shoot. At least some of them were Taliban sympathizers. Some of those expensively trained Afghan soldiers shot and killed their American ‘partners,’ proving just what side they were really on. That the Afghan army is said to have ‘melted’ into the populace as the Taliban walked triumphantly into Kabul should hardly be a surprise. Raise your hand if you expected anything different to happen. I’ll wait.”

Then there is this from President Biden:

“Over our country’s 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent its finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion dollars, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in U.S. history. One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

It is not the job of the U.S. military to prop up another nation’s military indefinitely, which is what the hand-wringers want.

As an honorably-discharged veteran of the U.S. military, I am irked by the “must-remain” hand-wringers who could have joined the U.S. military when they were young adults but who chose not to. They aren’t willing to risk their own lives, but they are willing to risk other people’s lives for a cause that is outside of America’s needs.