Analysis: How Afghan war showed limits of US military power

I think of these problematic issues with Afghanistan:
- I believe the Afghan Democracy needs to have a legitimate government, a military that can fight, and passion of the people in order for them to survive against the Taliban.
- I think the Afghans look at foreigners as an intrusion to their country.
- The mountainous terrain makes fighting a war harder.
- The Taliban ideology is installing Sharia Law.
- Winning hearts and minds, and nation building did not work well.

I disagree. You can't change people minds unless you kill them ALL. Remember Nam??

This is pure propaganda. The US military was ONLY limited by the defined mission.

And there was no "Afghan identity" that we trod upon. The biggest problem with that country is that the people refuse to identify the country AS a country. Family first. Tribe next. Nation last, if at all.

The US military could very easily have won the war - and arguably DID. The problem was that the civilians in charge then wanted warfighters to win the peace, which ain't our job. Even then, we could have done that if we had been allowed to DO it.

Our "limitation" was that we were required to work through the Afghans rather than doing it ourselves. And that is what State does, not Defense.