That is exactly what I am saying. We went into Afghanistan to depose a group of people who were giving shelter to our sworn enemies.
We are not about the business of trying to force the Afghans to accept our imperium. We have, quite correctly, looked at the history books and judged that to be an impossibility. So we are concentrating on our objective at hand (kill the Al Qaeda) while pursuing "nation building" as a secondary objective (we have a lot of warlords on the take). That explains Karzai. That also explains why we have so few troops there. The Sovs had 100,000 men in their invasion force, and thousands roaming all over the country at any one time. We, otoh, are leaving most of the Afghans alone to live their lives. The only part of Afghanistan you see us running around in is the extremely religious and pro-Taliban Pathan southeast along the border. We're also renting the loyalties of local headmen for as long as they'll stay loyal (about a week until their next bribe comes through). And, unlike the Russians, we are spending money. Afghans like that about us.
The Afghans are getting wealthier off of us. They like that. Most of them, anyway.
What is impossible for us to do is impose an imperium on Afghanistan at the point of a bayonet.
Be Seeing You,
Chris