Reply #146: We didn't really "invade" and take hostile occupation of Afghanistan.

[Honeycombe8]

That really is a mischaracterization.

We ousted the Taliban from their positions of power, there, since it was being run by Al Qaeda and wouldn't give up the AQ membership. We did that with full cooperation and assistance and permission of the non-Taliban parts of Afghanistan. Afghans are in control of their country, actually, and have held elections (suspect thought they are).

The Talibans were not killed off, unless they engaged in war with our troops. They can't all be killed off, anyway, since they live in little tribes scattered over broad territories in hard to traverse lands.

The whole point was not to invade and take control of Afghanistan. The point was to root out the terrorist camps (that's where lots of the terrorists, incl. the ones who hijacked the planes in the U.S., were trained), and take their ability to train terrorists away, and see to it that they didn't regain control of the country. All because that was the root of the 9/11 attacks.

It was a very different cause than the Iraq War. And the Iraq War was also a distraction from teh main war, which should've been Afghanistan. If they had focused on Afghanistan from the start, it's possible they would've caught OBL before he moved to Pakistan and lined up his sources of help in Pakistan.