Wrong. Some of us knew it was all going to be for nothing almost from the start. I first deployed to AFG in 2002. The entire operation should have started with us kicking the mortal shit out of anything that even looked like it needed a good kicking, and ended with us nailing a note to the front door of the presidential palace in Kabul saying, "Get your shit together. If you fuck up again, we'll come back." And leaving. So I was there when they made to decision to go from a short-term, Special Operations centric, kinetic, kill-capture model, to a long-term "hearts and minds", "nation-building" model, to bring lasting peace and liberal democracy to people who, in their entire history, have never shown any desire whatsoever for either. And then I spent a total of 7 years of my life, boots on the ground time there, one deployment at a time, away from my family, everywhere from Mazar-i-Sharif to Garmsir , and from JBad to Herat. Every time I deployed to AFG again, I would look around at some new facility that was being built, or some new patch of concrete that was being poured, and I would ask whoever was in charge the same question: "Hey, what do you guys think the Taliban are going to do with all this shit after we leave?" And I never got a straight answer. They'd give a wry smile, a shake of the head, a shrug of the shoulders and that was it. They knew as well as I did. So I retired. And I, the thick-browed, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breather at the back of the room, have been sitting back on my fundament, comfortably observing exactly what I had been predicting would happen for the last 20 years, transpire. From a great distance, a cold beer in my hand, and with no small amount of wry amusement. Go figure. While all of the wise and powerful sages in the "Five-Sided-Wind-Tunnel" in Arlington, the lace panty crowd in Foggy Bottom, and the wizards of smartness in McLean stand around and scratch their collective asses while they watch what they said couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't ever happen, actually happen. I got to see the best efforts and lives of the best people and Americans that I will ever have the privilege and honor of knowing, pissed away by a bunch of sociopathic, narcissistic, retards that I wouldn't trust to competently run a lemonade stand. We knew then, and we know now exactly what it was all worth. And yes, we are outraged. And no, you don't get to hear what happens next. You don't know? Exactly.