That's a vague claim. Who are all these alleged warlords that changed the course of the Global War on Terror? You're implying that there's all this behind the scenes smoke and mirror stuff but look at the reality of the situation. Here's what the US did to the Taliban and Al Qaeda as a matter of fact: We relentlessly hunted the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, until he turned up dead from diabetes in Pakistan. We imprisoned most of the Taliban leadership in 2001 and put them in Gitmo, but we let them go in exchange for one of our dipshit soldiers that ran away from his base. For Al Qaeda, we killed their two leaders, Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, and we killed the third guy in charge more times than I can count. We may have turned a blind eye to some drug trafficking and small arms trading. That's not cool, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to all the people we killed and detained during our 20 year occupation of Afghanistan. The US military and government aren't great at making good things happen in foreign countries, but they're good at what they do. Look at Ukraine. Look at all the dead Russians and their destroyed equipment. That's US technology and information at work. You can call it stupid and shortsighted, but you're wrong.

Our biggest mistake in Afghanistan was after we killed Bin Laden, that we didn't declare victory, and then leave that godforsaken place.

e: I in no way mean to discredit the bravery of the men and women fighting in Ukraine. I'm pointing out that the US is their prime supplier of arms, equipment, and information.