The Taliban are morons and Muhammad was a schizophrenic pedophile.

[DocIllinois]

The U.S. will still be operating to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and numerous other middle eastern countries.  

Should civilians need to engage in warfare against terrorists on our soil, something will have gone terribly, and implausibly, wrong with a concerted international effort.

It was General Patton who said, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

The Taliban have no country, just some stupid, false religion, and yes, given 20 years of warfare, some things have gone terribly wrong.  It was a mistake to pull out.

The Soviets damn sure fought to win in Afghanistan before pulling out.  How did that turn out for them?

We accomplished our objectives in Afghanistan within three weeks.  We then turned the operation into a conventional one and attempted to grant our version of freedom to people who aren't interested in it.

If Afghanistan's government needs billions of our dollars a year and the might of the U.S. military to defeat an irregular force of it's own citizens, it doesn't have the backing of its own people or properly interested leadership and is a lost cause.