What does it tell you about the "civilians" when they don't do those things? The minute we leave Afghanistan, it's going right back to the Taliban, or something very much like them with a different name, and it doesn't matter if we stay there for one more week or one more decade.

In Iraq, they do take action instead of cowering in fear, but the action they take is to empower their own militia based on their own group affiliation. When we leave Iraq, again in a week or a decade, doesn't matter, that place is going to fly apart in three different directions. It will start with the Shia and Kurds having a big Sunni BBQ in the middle of the country, then Iran will annex the Shia area, with their full cooperation, while the Kurds will be attacked and destroyed from three different directions from Syria, Iran, and Turkey.

There is a way to prevent all of this, and it goes right to the heart of the question you asked at the beginning of this thread. These people don't observe any standards of civilised behavior when they fight each other, and that's the way they have to be fought. If we went Roman on them, with 100 to 1 reprisals on the civilian population every time they step out of line, our goals might be acheivable, but since the political will to do that doesn't exist, we're destined to lose.