America is as deep as far, and similarly, its mistakes are as big as its economy. Not the first low point in American history, this book took me into a flashback of all wars America fought for nothing, not only this time, what America earned from The Sand Creek Massacre 1864, Repatriation of Mexicans 1930, My Lai Massacre 1968, Emmett Till's Murder 1955, invasion in Vietnam and Iraq.

America is habitual of wasting trillions of dollars either into direct wars, proxy wars, cold wars, or flaming conflicts, around the globe. I am sure they must be planning to waste further in space wars. Instead, they have pain for all, seems they are a pain for all.

America should be thankful to its president Joe Biden for getting America out of the 'forever war' in Afghanistan, and I hope they will correct their other mistakes also.

As always, the U.S. misread, miscalculated ill-conceived situation in Afghanistan, with the long war now leaving the Taliban at the height of their influence, this climax was written on the wall from the day one they landed in Afghanistan, but unfortunately, it took two decades to understand the reality that Afghanistan is well beyond America's capacity from Tora Bora to wartime fatigue which will remain in Americans minds for many future decades.

However, America still portraying the chaotic exit and messy pullout from Afghanistan as a success, this book well captures many fruitless efforts that America is used to doing with great ease. And in the end, they are given more territory, power, confidence, and strength to the Taliban than ever before.

Ideally, this war should have ended a long ago or even better if not started. This is equally important to see what the Taliban's learned and transformed through this and how they form their stable government, constitution, the credible electoral process, and governance mechanism with reconciliation while respecting respect international opinion, norms. The new government was supposed to run the entire country from Kabul with a new mindset to make Afghan society better and full of opportunities.

America with NATO allies led this longest and expensive failure of history consist of thousands of casualties and trillions of dollars. And, unfortunately, the United States didn't get serious about a peace process until it was too late, even till the end, failed to engage regional powers. The United States created unrealistic timelines and expectations for the rebuild. But on the other hand, no doubt that many American soldiers fought with skill and heroism fulfilling their national duty.

Unfortunately, on Aug 26, 2021, many lost their lives because of an attack by suicide bombers at the airport in Kabul.

Saqib J. John