You are blurring the line between nation building and appropriate response. I'm sure most Americans were not thinking about an indefinite occupation just prior to the invasion of Afghanistan. To think there would not be some sort of response to a country that openly supported a group that claimed responsibility for the murder of thousands is just plain ignorant. Hitting the training camps and writing their constitution are two totally different ideas. Terror needs to be fought with different tools including intelligence, stopping the flow of funding, creating hope for the hopeless, and going after the people involved.CameronPoe wrote:
Yes and as Rumsfeld put it "There are no good targets in Afghanistan". Basic history 101 would have indicated to the most simple-minded of folk that conventional warfare in an alien land will do little or nothing to combat terrorism - because terrorism is open source and perpetratable from anywhere with the most rudimentary of tools. The fact that the majority of the bombers came from Saudi Arabia hints at this fact. What did Atta et al learn in Afghanistan? How to board a plane with a pair of box-cutters? Let's face it: both the Afghanistan and Iraq missions are farcical in terms of combatting terror. The west cannot financially sustain their involvement in these countries forever - not to mention the human cost. It's a great shame so many people in the west were so gullible. Unfortunately it wouldn't have made a difference if the public hadn't bought it - the hawks had made their decision and were always going in irrespective.Kmarion wrote:
Looking at a globe I can see that Afghanistan is pretty far away also. We don't need to dumb the discuscion down to basic geography. The threat sold wasn't striking distance but rather a terrorism proxy.
Don't confuse my explanation as a means of justification neither. I'm just trying to elaborate on the circumstances at the time.
Small point - not being a dick here - but Blair sold it to the Brits as a 45 minute threat to the UK itself.
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