What Americans never understood or were never told about Afghanistan

I once upon a time was a member of the IC long since removed. I assist veterans like myself in navigating the VA for benefits many from Afghanistan.
The lie that has been and is still being told is there is a difference between the Taliban, ISIS and Al Queda. To put it in perspective that’s like saying there is a difference between the Proud Boys, KKK and 3%ers. The goals by all of them is the same to establish a Caliphate.

When we pushed the active fighters to Pakistan we see lines on a map and thought we were accomplishing something. We see distinctions between the groups that fundamentally don’t exist. We trained and gave arms to men that had/have no problem deceiving those that were intentionally ignorant about allegiances. The Afghan Army was always a paper army as long as we kept paying them. Were there some that had our interests in mind sure but never the majority and those tended to die in the fighting.

The Taliban and AQ/ISIS never really left they just changed uniform to appease us and wait knowing we would eventually leave. Our leaders never understood who they were dealing with. The reason everything seemed to fall so fast was it was never real in the first place. Once we “left” and stopped paying a huge chunk of the army just switched back into their old uniform now armed with all the guns and equipment we trained them with.

Afghanistan wasn’t lost it was never real to begin with and once you understand that everything else makes sense.