There was never a good reason for the US to occupy Afghanistan, and there was never a bad time to depart. From David Stockman at antiwar.com:
This weekend’s momentous events cry-out for a reformulation of Earnest Hemingway’s famous five word quip in “The Sun Also Rises”.
Per his description of the route to bankruptcy: How did the dismal Afghan outpost of Washington’s Potemkin Empire collapse?
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Less than three months ago, Afghanistan’s puppet President, Ashraf Ghani, inadvertently crystalized 20-years worth of lies, delusions, misdirection and malfeasance by Imperial Washington’s policy-makers and proconsuls in response to a question from the press:
Q: How long can your government last without US support?
A: Forever.
Yet by midday Sunday Ghani had fled the presidential palace with four cars and so many pallets of greenbacks that they could not all be stuffed into his helicopter. And, of a sudden, there was nothing left of the Empire’s $2 trillion folly to bring peace, democracy, Coca-Cola, long pants and coed schools to this godforsaken expanse of the Hindu Kush.
Then again, it wasn’t just Ghani. Just a few weeks ago, Sleepy Joe was no less sanguine about the future than the Afghan president:
REPORTER: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not.
REPORTER: Why?
THE PRESIDENT: Because you – the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped – as well-equipped as any army in the world – and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 