I think we like to dramatize things, saying the U.S. “invaded” Afghanistan for 20 years. But to be honest, that’s not really how they see it. If you ask them, the actual invasion lasted only a few months, from October to November 2001. The rest? They call it “reconstruction.” But that’s a joke. Think about it—no country, especially not a global superpower, spends two decades and trillions of dollars trying to “help” a nation out of pure kindness. That kind of generosity doesn’t exist at all. If they had such a deep, burning desire to build Afghanistan, they wouldn’t have invaded in the first place.
So, why did they do it anyhow? Well, here’s where it gets complicated. The U.S. didn’t come in with a master plan to reconstruct Afghanistan or establish a democratic government by bringing Hamid Karzai. They came in looking for Bin Laden, and as a result, they bombarded the whole freaking country. And ironically, by that time, Bin Laden wasn’t even in Afghanistan—he had already fled to Pakistan. So there they were, the U.S., left standing in the wreckage of a country they had just bombed to pieces. So what do you do? Pack up and leave? No, because history already showed what happens when Afghanistan is abandoned in chaos—think about the 1990s warlords tearing Kabul apart or the Taliban rising like a disease out of the ashes. Leaving wasn’t an option. They had to build something, stabilize something, or at least give the illusion that they tried.
And what political system do you impose when you’re stuck in a mess like this? You don’t reinvent the wheel. You pick the most default, plug-and-play system available. So, democracy. They chose democracy—not because it was some grand moral mission, not because the U.S. had a fetish for spreading Western values, but because there was no other option that made sense. What else would they have done? Revive the monarchy? That had already failed. Communism? It turned into a bloodbath. Tribal rule? It created warlords. Theocracy? The Taliban already proved what that looked like, with public executions everywhere and a safe haven for rats like Bin Laden.
So democracy it was. And I don’t think it was a bad choice. In fact, it was the only rational choice left. But we, as Afghans, rejected it—not because it was bad, but because we reject anything that challenges our illusions. We convinced ourselves it was some Western conspiracy to destroy our faith. As if the U.S. military, the most advanced war machine in history, actually sat down and said, “You know what? These Afghan shepherds and their iman are a real existential threat to us.” What a joke. The Americans didn’t care about our faith or religion, as those religious zealots like to claim. They cared about Bin Laden. The rest was just a geopolitical mess they got stuck in.
And I was thinking about this the other day and realized that this mess the U.S. made in Afghanistan doesn’t bother me at all. What bothers me is our own choices, our own inability to take charge and define our future. What did we do? Instead of using that chance to rebuild—with billions pouring in from the U.S. under the name of reconstruction—we chose to fight each other, while those filthy, corrupt liberals filled their pockets. We wasted two decades killing more of our own than the Americans ever did. We had an opportunity, flawed, incomplete, whatever you want to call it, but it was an opportunity. And we threw it away. We clung to pride, ignorance, and outdated ideas that have only ever led us to destruction.
Now look at us. Look at this freaking absurd existence. We’re exiled, scattered across foreign lands, watching our culture erode in places that don’t belong to us. The dreams and goals we once had back in our country are gone. The chance of me, my brother, or some random Afghan becoming president? Vanished. Pouf. Just like that. And now? The saddest part? It didn’t have to be this way. We had a choice. We just made the wrong one.