What Went Wrong In Afghanistan

Thirteen Years Later, What Went Wrong in Afghanistan -- Anand Gopal, Newsweek

President Barack Obama has abandoned his aim of ending America’s combat role in Afghanistan at the end of this year and has broadened the U.S. military mission to counter the advances of the Taliban. In his latest book, “No Good Men Among the Living,” journalist and author Anand Gopal describes where the U.S. went wrong in its -- so far -- thirteen-year occupation of the largely lawless country that once harbored Osama bin Laden.

From its earliest days, the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan was tethered to American aid, incapable of surviving on its own. It was reminiscent of the Afghan Communist regime of the 1980s, which lived and died by Moscow’s patronage—except that now there was a twist.

Of the $557 billion that Washington spent in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2011, only 5.4 percent went to development or governance. The rest was mostly military expenditure, a significant chunk of which ended up in the coffers of regional strongmen like Jan Muhammad (JMK).

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My Comment: We stayed too long .... and what made things worse is that no one defined (from President Bush to President Obama) on what that U.S. military mission would then be.