Pakistani protesters rally against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in Karachi, Pakistan, September 2001
Reuters The United States has been fighting a war in Afghanistan for over 18 years. More than 2,300 U.S. military personnel have lost their lives there; more than 20,000 others have been wounded. At least half a million Afghans—government forces, Taliban fighters, and civilians—have been killed or wounded. Washington has spent close to $1 trillion on the war. Although the al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead and no major attack on the U.S. homeland has been carried out by a terrorist group based in Afghanistan since 9/11, the United States has been unable to end the violence or hand off
Source URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2020-02-10/how-good-war-went-bad