But neither has there been a lot of resistance; most places surrendered without a fight, from what I can tell. That suggests that the Taliban, for good or ill, have more legitimacy in the eyes of Afghanis, than the government we created and supported for the last 20 years. But, Afghanistan has changed, and who really knows what is going to happen. Cell phones are ubiquitous. They hardly existed in 2001. A whole generation of Afghani women are now educated. We'll just have to see. And the Taliban may just have to figure out how to swim with the sharks of that region, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China.

> That suggests that the Taliban, for good or ill, have more legitimacy in the eyes of Afghanis,

No, I would say that the Afghanis were literally told that they were going to eventually lose the war and that the Taliban would eventually win. The people put in the position to fight the Taliban made the sensible choice to lose peacefully, as opposed to risking their lives for a lost cause.

Perhaps. But I'm not sure why Afghans would hold any particular allegiance to the rather corrupt government set up by a foreign occupying power.

> the sensible choice to lose peacefully, as opposed to risking their lives for a lost cause.

I wonder how long they cashed their checks, knowing full well they were going to surrender immediately as soon as the US was going to pull out. Or better, despite not ever having the intention of fighting (or even agreeing with the Taliban), claiming persecution to hustle a western visa/passport when they would inevitably lose.

Well, reports are that the leaders of the ANA were corrupt and stealing the checks and the Taliban paid the soldiers to surrender so…

I've read that some families would send one son to fight for the Taliban, and the other to fight for the Afghan army or police as a kind of insurance policy: "The power of kinship led to a common arrangement whereby extended families have protected themselves by sending one son to fight with the government army or police (for pay) and another son to fight with the Taliban. This has been a strategy in many civil wars, for example, among English noble families in the 15th-century Wars of the Roses. It means that at a given point, one of the sons can desert and return home without fearing persecution by the winning side."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanista...

"...they've just won." (that is, the Taliban have won)

Consider:

- the Taliban that G.W. Bush knew are gone. Most of them have died,

- OBL and most of his partners are dead,

- almost anyone who helped OBL and is still alive remains a target and lives in fear for their life,

IOW who "won" might be considered to depend on what we mean by the word "Taliban". The Taliban today is not the Taliban of yesteryear. If there is someone who was Taliban during G.W.'s term and is still Taliban today, ask him whether this feels like victory. He might say yes, but then ask him about his old fighting buddies who weren't as lucky as he.

The term "winner" can also mean someone who is still standing when the game ends. In this sense today's "Taliban" has won.

I think we made our point and overstayed our welcome. And now we're going home. We're late but we are leaving Afghanistan.

> IOW who "won" might be considered to depend on what we mean by the word "Taliban".

Well it certainly wouldn’t include UBL or anyone in Al Qaeda, since they are two totally different groups with totally different goals. We could have gone in 20 years ago with the goal of destroying Al Qaeda and their ability to organize terror attacks. We chose to also overthrow the Taliban “government” and install a new government in Afghanistan.

> If there is someone who was Taliban during G.W.'s term and is still Taliban today, ask him whether this feels like victory. He might say yes, but then ask him about his old fighting buddies who weren't as lucky as he.

"The days of the Taliban are over. The future of Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan. And the future of Afghanistan belongs to freedom." -President Bush 2006

“I am considering two promises. One is the promise of God, the other is that of Bush. The promise of God is that my land is vast. If you start a journey on God's path, you can reside anywhere on this earth and will be protected... The promise of Bush is that there is no place on earth where you can hide that I cannot find you. We will see which one of these two promises is fulfilled…As for the United States' future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors - the Soviets and, before them, the British.”- Mullah Mohammad Omar, 2001

Mullah Mohammad Omar died of natural causes. Jalaluddin Haqqani died of natural causes, and Sirajuddin Haqqani and the other Haqqani senior leaders of today were around in 2001. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, “the Butcher of Kabul”, and a key senior ally to the Taliban pre and post 9/11 is alive and pardoned. Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban, is out of prison, and signed the agreement on behalf of the Taliban for the US withdrawal. The Taliban of 2001 and the Taliban of today are the same Taliban, just 20 years apart.

I don’t find your “considerations” at all compelling.

To add to your comment, George Bush's neoconservative faction has been defeated: they are nowhere within the Trump era Republican party. The Democrats have likewise distanced themselves from that era. But the Taliban lives on, having outlasted the shifting political winds in the US.