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> When you really look at it, no major act of terrorism of the same scale was going to happen anyways Why this is the case was a full court press on AQ across

> When you really look at it, no major act of terrorism of the same scale was going to happen anyways Why this is the case was a full court press on AQ across the globe by IC, and toppling the safety net in AFG was a (the) critical part of that occurring. It’s a fairly lengthy operation to succinctly cite, but starting with the CIA’a CTC activities between ‘97 and ‘03 will cover it. It’s also important to keep in context that after the Embassy bombings in Tanzania/Kenya in ‘98 (200 dead) another attack of the same scale was never going to happen again. And after the USS Cole (17 KIA plus a decommissioned Naval Destroyer), another attack at that scale was deemed unlikely. 9/11 happened, and… all sourcing to a serious inability to directly target or gain Intel on AQ, which operated freely in AFG. So, the initial invasion was critical in that narrow sense. AQ was toppled and never recovered globally. Should we have stayed, or instead given it to a United Front or heavily empowered/armed/funded Karzai? To your point - probably the latter was a good option, 20 years and a lot of dead Americans later. Edit - downvote for over-acronym use makes sense, another user helpfully linked acronym <>wiki articles. That said, the above is well known history, but happened a very long time ago to a niche area of national security. If people are curious on “what the hell happened to Afghanistan for 20 years,” it’s important to know this part.

krastanov 5y ago
Maybe I am just from a different cultural background, but I do not understand half of the abbreviations here. Could you help clarifying what you are saying?
- blendergeek 5y ago
  AQ: Al-Qaeda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda IC: Intelligence Community - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community AFG: Afghanistan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan CIA: Central Intelligence Agency - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency CTC: Counter Terrorism Center - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center KIA: Killed in Action - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action
- deleted 5y ago
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SECProto 5y ago
Your comment uses too many acronyms to understand, I'm sure others here feel the same. I know that CIA is the US Central Intelligence Agency, and KIA means killed in action ... by context I'm pretty sure AQ is Al-Qaeda and AFG is for some reason an acronym for Afghanistan? But I have no idea what IC, CTC, or the USS Cole are. Is "United Front" an organization that would justify the capitalization, or do you mean a united front in general? Aside from that, what does an embassy bombing in Tanzania/Kenya have to do with Afghanistan or 9/11? Was it done by Al-Qaeda? And could you clarify or expand on most of the rest of your comment?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Aside from that, what does an embassy bombing in Tanzania/Kenya have to do with Afghanistan or 9/11? Was it done by Al-Qaeda? Yes, the embassy bombings and the attack on the USS Cole were carried out by al-Qaeda.
- dogman144 5y ago
  > It’s a fairly lengthy operation to succinctly cite But also see other user’s post below. In short, Afghanistan and Al Qaeda were on the map for a very long time, but no one listened. By the time 9/11 occurred, AQ was a global, well coordinated organization with a single underfunded agency (CIA) tracking it. The agency was largely forbidden from accessing the only spot Al Qaeda really aggregated: Afghanistan. If you can orient to a pre-Internet time, it makes sense how much (realized) risk this black box caused - embassy and US navy ship bombings, and 9/11. The United Front is another term for the Northern Alliance, a ~tribal group in northern AFG. It was the CIA’s main access and information flow into AFG until 9/12. The state dept and official policy largely forbade interacting with them though. The leader of the UF who the CIA linked with starting back in the late 90s, guy named Massood, was assassinated by the Taliban/AQ on like 9/10 iirc (so days before 9/11). This all goes to say that the invasion of AFG was tremendously important, but staying there once AQ was gone maybe was not. There are fairly tragic records of July and early Sept 2001 briefings from the CIA to the President on the imminent threat actual. One way to start reading about this history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofer_Black https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofer_Black

krastanov 5y ago

Maybe I am just from a different cultural background, but I do not understand half of the abbreviations here. Could you help clarifying what you are saying?

blendergeek 5y ago
AQ: Al-Qaeda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda IC: Intelligence Community - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community AFG: Afghanistan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan CIA: Central Intelligence Agency - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency CTC: Counter Terrorism Center - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center KIA: Killed in Action - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

SECProto 5y ago

Your comment uses too many acronyms to understand, I'm sure others here feel the same. I know that CIA is the US Central Intelligence Agency, and KIA means killed in action ... by context I'm pretty sure AQ is Al-Qaeda and AFG is for some reason an acronym for Afghanistan? But I have no idea what IC, CTC, or the USS Cole are. Is "United Front" an organization that would justify the capitalization, or do you mean a united front in general? Aside from that, what does an embassy bombing in Tanzania/Kenya have to do with Afghanistan or 9/11? Was it done by Al-Qaeda? And could you clarify or expand on most of the rest of your comment?

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Aside from that, what does an embassy bombing in Tanzania/Kenya have to do with Afghanistan or 9/11? Was it done by Al-Qaeda? Yes, the embassy bombings and the attack on the USS Cole were carried out by al-Qaeda.
dogman144 5y ago
> It’s a fairly lengthy operation to succinctly cite But also see other user’s post below. In short, Afghanistan and Al Qaeda were on the map for a very long time, but no one listened. By the time 9/11 occurred, AQ was a global, well coordinated organization with a single underfunded agency (CIA) tracking it. The agency was largely forbidden from accessing the only spot Al Qaeda really aggregated: Afghanistan. If you can orient to a pre-Internet time, it makes sense how much (realized) risk this black box caused - embassy and US navy ship bombings, and 9/11. The United Front is another term for the Northern Alliance, a ~tribal group in northern AFG. It was the CIA’s main access and information flow into AFG until 9/12. The state dept and official policy largely forbade interacting with them though. The leader of the UF who the CIA linked with starting back in the late 90s, guy named Massood, was assassinated by the Taliban/AQ on like 9/10 iirc (so days before 9/11). This all goes to say that the invasion of AFG was tremendously important, but staying there once AQ was gone maybe was not. There are fairly tragic records of July and early Sept 2001 briefings from the CIA to the President on the imminent threat actual. One way to start reading about this history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofer_Black https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofer_Black