On October 16, 2001, Army Special Forces entered Afghanistan by helicopter, the first U.S. troops on the ground there since the 9/11 attacks. Since then, thousands of Americans have fought there, and over two thousand have died. By almost every measure we have little to show for seventeen years of war. We and some of our NATO allies drove the Taliban out of Kabul, Afghanistan´s capital, in November 2001. Since then, the Taliban have maintained the fight. As of October 2017, the government controlled only 56% of Afghanistan, down from 72% in 2015. The Taliban control or are still fighting in about 30% of Afghanistan. They are able to do so for several reasons. First, because our...
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