[JohnBooty]

    Is that what we were doing in Afghanistan? We 
    were there to build a democracy of institutions? 
    Or were we there to pillage a country?

I'm not a fan of the US' occupation of Afghanistan, and I don't think the US was there for some sort of higher ideal... but, pillage? It's not a country from which there is much wealth to extract.

Of course, the US military-industrial complex profited nicely. That's not quite the same as pillaging, though.

[rjzzleep]

Except of course for the Trillion worth of mineral wealth found in 2010[0], that the Afghan government has been spending $300 million per year on(probably to US contractors)[1].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.htm...

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/afghanistan-taliban-to-reap-1-trillion...