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Our original reasoning was the War on Terror and specifically to hunt Bin Laden and deny Al-Qaeda a safe base of operations to plan out future attacks. The Tal

Our original reasoning was the War on Terror and specifically to hunt Bin Laden and deny Al-Qaeda a safe base of operations to plan out future attacks. The Taliban was considered, at the time, to provide safe harbor to Al-Qaeda and thus were driven out of power with force. At the time, before the invasion Bush even demanded the Taliban hand over Bin Laden. But the Taliban refused and demanded "sufficient proof" of the 9/11 attacks. It all went downhill from there though. Our money had Afghan's turning in their local enemies as terrorists. Taliban went into hiding but still had plenty of influence. And many villages, especially those that were super rural and away from the larger cities, didnt really want the infrastructure or modernization that the US tried to use as a bargaining chip. Basically it was the US being really upset about 9/11 and vowing vengance, but losing their way once it became obvious that vengance was not really going to be...swift.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Afgh...

anm89 5y ago
I generally agree with this but I think it's also important to separate separate narrative from the reason. I think what you wrote is more about the narrative. And while I think there are grains of truth in the narrative I don't think it does a good job explaining what we were doing in Afghanistan. For example, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would argue our primary motive in Iraq was securing oil access. But this certainly wasn't the official narrative on why we were in Iraq
- croutonwagon 5y ago
  Well I think at the time, the narrative was pretty close to the reasoning overall. Americans and our government were raw and out of blood. It was the largest attack on home soil since Pearl Harbor. 9/11 was used to push a lot of freedoms out the window as well. The narrative was definitely part of the reason. Dont forget we danced in the streets when OBL was finally killed decades later, which i found odd as an American.. However, Its been part of our foreign policy since WWII to always try and take any fight to the other homefront and not our own. And with this being, again, one of the larger attacks on our own soil.. But the ancillaries (having bases of operations on/near Pakistan and Iran and to some extent, Russia were probably also a heavy second. What with the Kashmir region largely considered a powder keg, and our weird love/hate relationship with Pakistan. Those definately werent a deterrent.

anm89 5y ago

I generally agree with this but I think it's also important to separate separate narrative from the reason. I think what you wrote is more about the narrative. And while I think there are grains of truth in the narrative I don't think it does a good job explaining what we were doing in Afghanistan. For example, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would argue our primary motive in Iraq was securing oil access. But this certainly wasn't the official narrative on why we were in Iraq

croutonwagon 5y ago
Well I think at the time, the narrative was pretty close to the reasoning overall. Americans and our government were raw and out of blood. It was the largest attack on home soil since Pearl Harbor. 9/11 was used to push a lot of freedoms out the window as well. The narrative was definitely part of the reason. Dont forget we danced in the streets when OBL was finally killed decades later, which i found odd as an American.. However, Its been part of our foreign policy since WWII to always try and take any fight to the other homefront and not our own. And with this being, again, one of the larger attacks on our own soil.. But the ancillaries (having bases of operations on/near Pakistan and Iran and to some extent, Russia were probably also a heavy second. What with the Kashmir region largely considered a powder keg, and our weird love/hate relationship with Pakistan. Those definately werent a deterrent.