Even in that article, it says that Al'Qaida started that war. We never went to war with Afghanistan. Afghanistan as a state arguably never existed. The people of Afghanistan are tribal and only had warlords and religious leaders as institutions. We occupied territory to root out a terrorist organization, which was successful. The Taliban tried to harbor said terrorists, but our beef was never with them. Around 2010, our mission statement shifted from destroying Al'Qaida to leaving Afghanistan a better place than we left it, which came in the form of hospitals and schools. Then in 2012 to 2014 that expanded again to leaving them a functional government. The last bit is where we failed. But it was not a disaster for us, and the 2nd bit of whether or not they are better off from the 1990s is debatable, but mostly successful.