Our failure in Afghanistan is everything wrong with America

America has failed in Afghanistan. After twenty years, we have been defeated and the country has fallen to the Taliban in a largely bloodless final offensive. Americans deserve a reckoning. Unfortunately, this is impossible. The institutions necessary for taking account of our failure are broken and, in fact, responsible for this humiliation. The Afghan debacle is the result of cowardly leaders, corrupt institutions, and incapable press.

It should be made very clear, that there is plenty that the hundreds of thousands of…