“Everyone here hated the Americans,” said Zabiullah Haideri, 30. His shop was shattered by an airstrike in 2019 that killed 12 villagers. “They murdered civilians and committed atrocities.”

In Kabul and other Afghan cities, the United States will be remembered for enabling two decades of progress in women’s rights, an independent media and other freedoms. But in the nation’s hinterlands, the main battlegrounds of America’s longest war, Afghans view the United States primarily through the prism of conflict, brutality and death.

Here in Wardak province, 25 miles southwest of the capital, the U.S. military, the CIA and the ruthless Afghan militias they armed and trained fought the Taliban for years. Trapped in the crossfire were villagers and farmers. Many became casualties of U.S. counterterrorism operations, drone strikes and gun battles…

The villagers never got to see the other face of America: its generosity. Hardly any of the billions of dollars in U.S. aid that poured into Afghanistan reached Sinzai, less than two hours’ drive from Kabul. Reconstruction efforts outside the capital were thwarted by insecurity, corruption and inefficiency, the U.S. government’s own watchdog agency concluded. Homes in Sinzai and nearby villages still don’t have electricity or running water.