‘The US military invasion of our country [in 2001] was like getting stabbed,’ he said. ‘You bleed upon impact, but how the knife is pulled out determines the seriousness of your wound and chances of survival.’

That metaphor is very telling, but as a young American, the dicision that we needed to make was clear: remove all troops and influence. It's true that generations before mine have blundered their way through international relations in the Middle East, but trying to fix that ourselves isn't going to make it any better. To me, and the majority of Americans noted clearly in polls, is to remove all troops and return the rightful soveriegnty entirely to the country. Having our hands in the pot for the sake of national security, especially the way we did so, spending "$978 billion on the Afghan war between October 2001 and the end of 2019," with only "$36 billion of this" supporting "governance and development in Afghanistan" is simply ridiculous.

Although Hakimi does say that widrawal will probably cause a "proxy war," I think it's time for America to hang its head hear and to apologize and simply say there is nothing else we can do. Any more meddling will just muddle it more, and Afghanistans have the right to live free of our imperialism in the Middle East. Continuing aid to the country is also a difficult thing, because you essentially pick and choose what groups that aid goes to.