Thanos Thanos:
The sheer power of post-9/11 rage, of which I admit to being guilty of myself for too long a time after the attack on the WTC, shut off the critical thinking abilities of too many. If those as brutal as the Soviets were, who did things in Afghanistan to quell the populace that rivalled what the Third Reich did on the Eastern Front, couldn't hold onto that fucking place then no one can. Rabid primitive scum that they apparently are, tribal Muslims deserve some kind of credit when they hunker down to defend their turf. They have an immunity to the nonsense of "shock & awe" that's beyond belief and a mental staying power so strong it's like their minds are composed of 99% Viagra.

That's kind of true, but the reality for the Soviets was the same for us - the insurgents had a bolthole on the other line of a dotted line neither was willing to cross to stamp them out.
Every time the Taliban got crushed in Afghanistan, they slid into Pakistan and rearmed and recruited (with the help of allies in the ISI) until they felt ready to go back and try again. Had either party (the Soviets or the West) been willing to fly over the border and smash their camps and bases in Pakistan, the Taliban would have been thoroughly and decisively stamped out.
But in the 80s, Pakistan was an ally of the US and now they have nukes, so the West wasn't willing to risk it either.
It was lose-lose no matter how you slice it. The best we can hope for is that Karzai's regime can hold onto power after NATO leaves - and if it is in danger of falling, that the West will intervene to prevent it (unlike the fall of South Vietnam in 1975).