In 2001 the Americans, just like previous invaders, moved in swiftly and captured Kabul. After ejecting the Taliban, they installed Hamid Karzai, who had previously been in the service of the American energy company Unocal, with an interest in setting up a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
Next year, after numerous casualties and billions of dollars in cost, the US combat mission is ending like the previous two: due to the unsustainable cost of occupation and waning political support at home for a war that is widely considered unjust.
As coalition forces begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, we see the replication of the Soviet story, as the NY Times noted again: "not a single battlefield engagement was lost to guerrillas, and no outpost ever fell to insurgents."
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