We should never have been there in the first place - twenty years ago, we should have engaged in whatever military action was needed to ensure that al-Qaeda could no longer freely operate against us from the country and then left; if I remember correctly, the Taliban leadership offered just that, and we invaded anyway.
I don't really consider this a policy failure for the Biden administration; this outcome was a foregone conclusion once we decided to try to build a nation in a place where no nation-building was possible, and three administrations kicked the can down the road at a cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives because nobody wanted to be the one with the loss on their record.
But the way we've treated the people who risked their lives to help and support us is absolutely criminal; we offered them protection, and instead we screwed around for years with bureaucratic bullshit while time ran out, and now a bunch of people are going to die because of it. Heads should roll over this monumental failure.
Hindsight is a great thing but perhaps we're reaching the goal that might have been achievable within a year, namely punish the Taliban for supporting international terrorism and make clear that it won't be tolerated again. Hopefully, if they have a little sense the Talibans understand this this time.
I don't really consider this a policy failure for the Biden administration; this outcome was a foregone conclusion once we decided to try to build a nation in a place where no nation-building was possible, and three administrations kicked the can down the road at a cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives because nobody wanted to be the one with the loss on their record.
But the way we've treated the people who risked their lives to help and support us is absolutely criminal; we offered them protection, and instead we screwed around for years with bureaucratic bullshit while time ran out, and now a bunch of people are going to die because of it. Heads should roll over this monumental failure.