Was the world blind sided by the takeover? Or was there really no way to avoid this outcome? I believe it was avoidable, but this is coming from someone who has no firsthand knowledge of the land, the people and the challenges. I do believe in this day and age many things are possible. Where did the US and the UN fail, I mean besides the obvious failure? I mean, is the number of militants higher, their power, the will of the people morr with the militants? What is the miscalculation?

Winning Hearts and Minds? Their hearts weren't in it, so now their minds will be imprisoned by Islamic extremism. That's the problem with fanatical terrorism - - It grinds down the will of the oppressed until they cannot imagine resistance. Promoting Western freedom cannot nation-build with a population of PTSD-paralyzed paranoics.

Um, plenty of Afghans were quite willing to fight to drive a foreign invader from their land. That few Afghans were willing to fight to support the quisling colonial "government" those invaders imposed on Afghanistan shouldn't have surprised anyone, although apparently it did.

That’s for doubly damned sure.