Yes, those countries absolutely turned out well, but at the time it wasn't clear that communism was going to fall and that the outcome for any of those countries could be positive at all. The counter point to the countries that exited communism well are the autocratic countries like Russia, Belarus and China. Also, at the time, I can understand the extreme fear of communism that the leaders in America had at the time. It was the cold war, we know of nothing similar to the persistent existential threat of armageddon that people on both sides of the conflict experienced every day. People were scared, it seems rational that both sides pushed hard to prevail and they each tried to pick the least shitty option out of a set of shitty options.

Also, what other options did we have to help afghanis at the time? There were definitely numerous cons to supporting the taliban, but weren't they the most capable organization at waging war in the area at the time? I guess we could have tried to find more moderate opposition to the Russians but that would have come at the cost of having less capable opposition to the Russians.

I'm sure that some of our leaders, members of the CIA, and soldiers may have been corrupt and self serving in their decisions but I would argue that a majority of them were rational and honorable individuals who were doing their best to uphold the oaths they made to protect America. They were figuratively and some times literally giving their lives to something they truly believed in. It doesn't seem right to cast them all under the bus and say they were corrupt evil individuals without exercising empathy and contemplating what they knew at the time and the choices that were laid out in front of them.