It's not like the fedgov spent that entire $2 trillion over there. Most of that got spent into the military-industrial complex, right here at home. The US got

It's not like the fedgov spent that entire $2 trillion over there. Most of that got spent into the military-industrial complex, right here at home. The US got a jobs program for veterans, and a graft trough for the politically well-connected, operating "Beltway Baron" companies in the DC Metro, and the cities just outside of all military bases in the continental US. If it wasn't justified by suppressing support for terrorism in Afghanistan, it would have been justified by quashing drug smuggling by rebel factions in South America, or by protecting naval shipping routes near the Philippines, or some other pretext to keep pumping the tax money to the same old people. Not accomplishing the mission as publicly stated is a feature, not a bug, because it obviates the necessity to create some new problem that needs to be fixed with military force.