What are your feelings as the Taliban reclaim Afghanistan after 20 years of US involvement?

I'm not sure who I'm more disappointed with - the president or the Joint Chiefs. giving up Bagram Air Base was a fool's blunder. Everything sits differently if we hold the base.

Extremely happy to finally see the mission in Afghanistan over. I earned my Bronze Star over there by sacrificing lots of suet and tears. I also received the Purple Heart for injuries received in combat. Knowing that is over, closes a chapter in my life, and brings me joy.

There is never a diplomatic solution to a HOLY WAR!! Oh humanitarian aid, we set up a $700million on an Embassy. I pray every day for the families and military forces. It is obvious that the of the USA government has been mishandling and underestimating the threat. Hopefully they can successfully get everyone out safely

I knew it was going to end this way. I just hope that everyone can see that the sacrifices we made over the last 20 years were not in vain. I understand if people disagree, though. Some of us look at the big picture and see it as incomplete while others of us look at our own individual piece of the picture and gauge success or failure from that.

Well, since carlos asked this, and he has been know to sensor views he deems inappropriate (read as too conservative) let's see how long this lasts. Our former "community organizer in chief" created ISIS by pulling out 100% of our troops from Iraq, it took many U.S. lives and President Trump to fix it. Now, biden is creating "taliban" 2.0. I weep for the nearly 4000 U.S. servicemen whose love he has squandered well as all the prepubescent girl who will now be married off to old, perverted muslim wannabees to start having sex immediately and babies as soon as they reach puberty. I further mourn the impending death of all those the party of democrats have abandoned. Those who are even "perceived" to have aided the U.S. and our allies. Their lives are now forfeit. The so called party if the underrepresented has now turned its back on all of these poor people. Thanx for taking an extended abandonment of your duty joe. Typical of you and your mentor to simply turn your back on innocents who Pau the price for your arrogance (can you say Benghazi?) Both my daughter (USAF Major) and I have time in that country and this poor excuse for a human simply threw thousands of lives down the drain.

Abandon. You can't change a 3k year old culture in 20 years. We needed to stay for the long game and we needed to do more than just kill things. Multiply Presidents, State Department Heads, General Officers and Letter agencies proved they were incompetent by there actions in AFG.

It is time for the General Officers that created this failure to except responsibility and resign, its time for the sitting President to except responsibility because he modify the Trump plan by removing the stipulations and admitted he owns the defeat. And its time for the us to recognize the fact that the Taliban won. . You don't have to like it, all you have to do is except it.

So...we cant afford living wage, Medicare for all and free college, but we can keep doing Vietnam over and over?

Thinking of the hundreds of combat casualties and the injuries we operated on. I could never thank them enough for their sacrifice. I remember many of their faces as they went to sleep. I sit and wonder where many of them are today and where they went after they left our care. I’ll never forget them and what they mean to our nation. God bless them all.

Make no mistake - Your service made the world a safer place, full stop.

Biggest mistake was falling for the sunk cost fallacy. If we had stuck to our initial mission set, disrupt/destroy Al Qaeda, disrupt/destroy Taliban leadership, and capture/Kill Osama. We'd have been fine. The problem we have is we always want to be the good guys, the white hats, John Wayne. We f***ed up by giving one iota about GIroA and the afghan citizens. If we had rolled in with a full invasion, smashed every last Taliban/Al Qaeda position and played duck hunt on the borders when they bailed for it we could have left in three years. Does Afghanistan recover? Who the f*** cares, not our monkey, not our zoo, but just like every g***amn time we start looking at what if's. News flash, no one should care if China, Russia, gains more regional hegemony because some third world dark age s***hole got flattened. All of a sudden we have to take on our shoulders the cares and worries for another country and it's citizens. It's a zero sum game though, and no one in the government understands that. What will we spend - what will we receive = is the juice worth the squeeze? We expended 1 trillion dollars, 2,312 dead, 20,066 wounded. All for a net return of 51,000 AQ/Taliban/Mujideen killed, one terrorist sect forced to temporarily move out and disperse, and one dead terrorist "figurehead" in a decentralized organization that operates independently. I lost friends, I lost my own blood and my own flesh, I lost the ability think as clearly as I used to, I lost time with my family, I lost all the things that everyone else on this forum has. I'm ashamed and heartsick that my country didn't learn from history, and I feel like I was robbed. When my grandchildren ask me what it was all for or what I did, I don't think I'll be able to answer them, because everything we did was worth nothing to the Afghani's and nothing to our nation.