Who declared that Afghanistan wanted us there to save them in the first place?

It was a resource war from the start.

You're somebody a little too close to the situation for a surprised Pikachu face. You ought to have know this.

So go ahead and call them cowards, maybe some of them were, but far more of them were going along with the act for a paycheck. And when the shit finally hit the fan it didn't take them long to choose the side they were already on.

Regardless, this outcome was predictable as fuck to anyone that was paying attention. Almost everyone figured out that the society rebuilding was a futile effort after only a few years in.

Repeatedly we heard "but if we leave now it'll all collapse." Going back what, at least 15 years we heard this? And then that's exactly that happened.

If you think the United States hung around that long out of the goodness of their Christian hearts, you have the naivety of a child.