8 Paradoxes That Sum Up America's 20-Year Mission In Afghanistan

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/17/ [login to see] /8-paradoxes-that-sum-up-americas-20-year-mission-in-afghanistan
The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and removal of the U.S.-backed government is stunning in its speed and tragic in its impact, but it does not surprise experts who have monitored the U.S. reconstruction efforts for the past 20 years. The reasons why are summed up by eight paradoxes that are at the heart of a U.S. government watchdog's just-released review of the mission.

"We can't rewind the clock in Afghanistan, but we are doing similar work in other countries," John Sopko, who leads the watchdog agency, recently told NPR. "And we should learn from the 20 years, not try to forget it and wash it away, or sweep it under the rug."

The list highlights a string of critical flaws in the U.S. approach, many of them rooted in fundamental misunderstandings — or what the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, calls "a willful disregard for information that may have been available."