I Wish I Found This Level of Arrogance And Stupidity Implausible

I find it implausible that 300,000 Afghan soldiers spontaneously and individually quit. I find it more plausible that they received such orders from their leaders who cut a deal with the Taliban. I look forward to reading more reporting to confirm/refute this hypothesis.

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 17, 2021

I find it implausible that Michael McFaul has the vaguest understanding of Afghanistan, because it sure sounds like he thinks it's Modern America:

Afghanistan didn't have a functioning government, but rather a bunch of people with official titles who were paid to do what we told them. Afghanistan didn't have a functioning army, it had a uniformed gang of men we gave M-16s and taught how to march and shoot. At least some of them were Taliban sympathizers. Some of those expensively trained Afghan soldiers shot and killed their American "partners," proving just what side they were really on. That the Afghan army is said to have "melted" into the populace as the Taliban walked triumphantly into Kabul should hardly be a surprise. Raise your hand if you expected anything different to happen. I'll wait.

Hmmm. No takers? I didn't think so.

....

The very worst thing about an American occupation of a foreign country is our arrogance of power. It infects everything. We have the biggest army, we have the biggest air force, we have the biggest navy; we have the biggest, most accurate, deadliest weapons; we have the most money, we can buy the most stuff, we can provide the most aid, and we can spread the most influence, which is to say we can insist on setting the rules and we can get our way. Our arrogance breeds contempt for those who don't recognize how right we are. If I had a dollar for every time I heard an American soldier use the word "backward" to describe something about either Iraq or Afghanistan, I could have retired by now.

....

The Afghan people know who they are and more than that, they know who they have always been, and they are just as proud as we are. I once sat down in a family compound behind 20-foot mud brick walls with a farmer and his sons who were descended from the family that had farmed that land and lived on it in mud brick compounds exactly like that one for more than 1000 years. When I used the word "Taliban" with the father, it meant "religious people" to him, not enemy. He took me outside and pointed down the road to a nearby farm. "Taliban," he said. He pointed further to another farm. "No Taliban," he said. Both farms were his neighbors. What he couldn't point to was the presence of anyone or anything having to do with the Afghan government, because in the remote region where his farm was along the border with Pakistan, there was no Afghan government.

We spent 20 messed-up years in Afghanistan flexing our muscles and spreading our money around, and now we are making a messed-up exit. We are leaving behind a country comprised largely of people just like the farmer I visited in his mud-brick compound, people who have never had contact with their government, people who live by religious rules and customs which are foreign to us and with which we don't agree, even rules which we consider to be cruel and "backward."

Long story short:  we never should have been there.  We never understood the people, the culture, anything about it.  But don't take my word for it; take it from the SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction):

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— Ali Dukakis (@ajdukakis) August 17, 2021

The U.S. Government did not understand the Afghan context and therefore failed to tailor its efforts accordingly. Ignorance of prevailing social, cultural, and political contexts in Afghanistan has been a significant contributing factor to failures are the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

Or, the shorter version:  

We use people up and throw them away like it’s nothing.