Why has the Afghanistan gone on so long, and what is its point? Does violence effective at convincing people? What is the point of war? The modern notion of a just, limited, winnable war is broken.
Historically, wars have been won by killing everyone who didn't obey. Often, this involved genocide. Genocide was how the United States was conquored from the native Americans. Even World War II ended with the fire-bombing of major German cities and the nuking of Japan.
We are sold a cleaner, gentler war, but again and again we face the internal contradictions. Such propoganda both precludes a genocidal war, and justifies an overly-hawkish policy.
Policy prescriptions based upon unfounded propaganda are misguide, and lead to lousy outcomes. Meanwhile, corporate interests are able to profit off of this status-quo without little consideration for actual policy implications. This has led to decay of US governmental effectiveness.