Imagine being old enough in 2002 to know the successor to the Mujaheddin was called the Northern Alliance who were our allies in opposition to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But since the facts didn't fit the narrative that we're fighting the people the US put into power and also didn't fit the racist narrative that "all those people over there are all the same." Neither the left nor the right wanted to think about Afghanis having any kind of agency so failure in Afghanistan was inevitable.