Curtis Houck
@CurtisHouck
.@RichardEngel: "This was a humbling day for the United States, a day of humility for a world superpower. Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires...The [U.S.] fought [there] for 20 yrs and is now...withdrawing...in defeat. This is a difficult moment for the military"

.@RichardEngel: "The world's greatest military couldn't hold on and ultimately, handed the country back to the same extremists that they had toppled just a few weeks after 9/11...The next Osama bin Laden might be watching what is happening right now[.]" //

“But if you’d step back and look at what is going on, this is the United States, after 20 years. This war used to be called Operation Enduring Freedom, and it’s turned out not to be enduring and they’re not leaving a society that is free,” he said in the below clip. “It is only free according to what the Taliban says will be free, the Taliban promises that it will be free.”

“You could also look at this as a tremendously humiliating – moment of American humiliation leaving, forced to leave on the Taliban’s clock and with the Taliban’s good graces,” Engel continued. “So tactically, it makes sense, but I’m not sure how history – I think history will judge this moment as a very dark period for the United States.” //

As Engel noted in his reports, we toppled the Taliban in a matter of weeks after 9/11. And now, after 20 years, in a matter of weeks, the Taliban has control again and it’s because of the way the exit was done.