Reading these comments it is wild how few people understand the US political and military objectives in Afghanistan. Few understand that the Taliban while most

Reading these comments it is wild how few people understand the US political and military objectives in Afghanistan. Few understand that the Taliban while mostly all the things we associate with a terror group, it was also a successful political party that began taking power through democratic elections, this was actually in the Clinton years (Taliban founded in 1994). Since then the military wanted to intervene, but Clinton ignored it because the embarrassing failure in Mogadishu (the Black Hawk Down incident in 1993) and reluctance to suffer another failed military campaign in his first term. When Bush took office he was surprisingly intent on use of force in Afghanistan against the Taliban, but it was politically and legally non-viable…then 9/11 happened and the administration had the pretext it needed, it just had to move quick before anyone could question the relationship between Taliban and 9/11. But in either case the US intelligence was always ready and willing to say that OBL was operating remotely from the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan as a legal justification to use armed force in Afghanistan against a non state actor because the state was failing to bring him to justice. Whether you are for or against the US spreading democracy around the world and their willingness to use armed force to achieve its ends…Afghanistan was not about spreading democracy, rather Afghanistan was about the US not approving of a particular democratically elected party. Of course there is a much deeper history of US funding/training of groups to fight soviets in the 70’s in Afghanistan and these groups ultimately lead to the foundation of Taliban, but for the most part it has little to do with the US use of military force in Afghanistan post 9/11.