There really isn't. The only practical alternative was to hand it over to some other great power to occupy, but no-one is stupid enough to willingly take that hot potato.
And yes, it was occupation. One thing that the rapid collapse made clear, is that Taliban genuinely has plenty of popular support, and the US-backed government had very little. Keep in mind that ANA had three times as much manpower as the Taliban, and military equipment supplied by US - and yet it all just dissipated in less than two weeks, because, apparently, no-one was actually willing to fight.
No. The US is so broke it's buying its own debt by the trillions of dollars via debasing its currency to keep the federal lights on (to keep social security and medicare solvent).
We can't pay our bills properly. When as a nation your central bank has to buy your own debt because nobody else can afford to buy so much garbage paper, you clearly can't afford such irresponsible foreign adventurism.
Enough is enough. Time to go home. Time to reduce military spending immediately. Time to stop playing at nation building. Time to stop pretending we can afford to be a globally deployed military superpower, as though WW3 is going on and we have to be at max defense spending.
The US couldn't afford Afghanistan 15 years ago. It most certainly can't afford it now.
