Hey Republicans: we lost the war, and it's your fault. Now we trade prisoners.

[MannyGoldstein]

Republicans (with a bit of Democratic help) waged an unbelievably-stupid war against Afghanistan, totally ignoring the basic rules of how to win. Like they ignore all rules based on "facts" and "evidence". Wars are normally won by destroying the enemy's will to fight, by horrific and sickening destruction - think Sherman's March to the Sea and the firebombings of Germany and Japan.

Obama took a crack at winning the thing, ignoring those same rules, but finally realized it wasn't happening.

So we lost.

War's over.

Now we trade prisoners.

That's how it always works.

If you don't like losing wars, either don't start them, or fight them in a way that might win.

[Capt. Obvious]

1. It wasn't my war

They drew first blood

[CJCRANE]

2. There isn't much infrastructure in Afghanistan in the first place.

You can't "bomb them back to the Stone Age" because Afghanis already live a simple life and there's nothing much there to bomb.

I thought there was a chance after the first "Loya Jirga" to develop the country but the international community just sort of forgot about Afghanistan in the rush to Iraq.

Obama tried to do what should have been done in the first place, but probably missed the window of opportunity.

ETA: I disagree with your analysis. I think the initial combat operation went just fine in routing the Taliban. One mistake was letting Bin Laden get away. The other mistake was not actually building the country up in the aftermath.

In WWII, the allies razed Germany to the ground, and Truman nuked Japan, but in the aftermath we installed democracies and built those countries up. The effective nation building was the part that was missing in both Afghanistan and Iraq.