I dunno man...we spent twenty years, thousands of lives, and enormous amounts of money trying to build Afghanistan into a Western democracy. The ease with which their security forces crumble and the Taliban encroaches on their holdings, to most of the nation now, is indicative of the increasingly-apparent reality none of us want to see; that Afghanistan is potentially a perpetually-fractured nation that will remain the Graveyard of Empires. We shouldn't waste U.S resources on a lost cause, even though I agree I'd have NEVER uttered these words post 9/11 or in the years thereafter.
That said, I think it's also a must that we honor the loyalty of those who faithfully served with our forces and the forces of Western allies. I watched a debate over a bill in Congress sponsored by some Democrat (whose name I regretfully forget...Kennedy, perhaps[am I insane??])? The gist was that we evacuate some 18,000 Afghan personnel and their families and begin the process of vetting and nationalizing them as U.S citizens if they choose. They are good as dead if they stay. The Taliban won't treat kindly those who treated with us.
We have to balance a lot of things here. The time has come to pull out though, unless we want to feed NATO troops and money into the meat grinder for another two decades.
