cross posting again:
I think discussing the war as if its all about afghanistan (or afghanistan and pakistan) is also misleading. What IS the purpose of going to war after 9-11? Obviously the final purpose is not some kind of police mission to arrest a particular perp. IF that is the purpose, then this trillion dollar war is the most ridiculous possible way of going about it. You could have paid Musharraf 100 billion and had everyone in Alqaeda in Guantanamo in one month. The fact is, that is NOT the overall purpose. Let us define the overall purpose, then the purpose of each subsidiary operation can be debated…..
My contention is that the reasons include some combination of deterring future attacks like 9-11 (or worse) “by any means necessary”, making sure that no organized modern state in the Muslim world actively supports or even passively tolerates such terrorists, and perhaps, getting some other geopolitical benefits in the process. Is that a fair assessment?