[throwawaysea]

Consider the account of the former ambassador, who says this was avoidable, and not something assured: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict...

Or the account of this former Army colonel who mentions how poorly managed Afghanistan was all this time, with basically no real attempt at establishing institutions over the last twenty years: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-americ...

Or the WSJ editorial board's suggestions to rescue Afghanistan from a few days ago: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rescue-plan-for-afghanistan-t...

There are plenty of ways this could have been handled better. It all comes down to having better leadership. The US hasn't had good leadership for a long time. Four different presidents came into office based on populist sentiments more than competence, and the result is they completely mismanaged all of this while we still incurred the immense expenses that a more successful plan would have required. Worst, they lied to the public and assured the public of how things were going well - this too came from multiple presidents.