This is the wrong takeaway from the whole ordeal. It was largely so-called fiscal conservatives who were very in favor of invading Afghanistan in the first pla

This is the wrong takeaway from the whole ordeal. It was largely so-called fiscal conservatives who were very in favor of invading Afghanistan in the first place. Their reasoning was that military defense is one of the few legitimate functions of a government, and since 9/11 had just happened, well, of course we needed more defense. Now that trillions of dollars have been thrown in the trash, they want to pretend this is a teachable moment about goverment waste in general, when it was really their waste. George W. Bush was a two-term president, and his pro-small-government voters share the credit for this fiscal disaster; nobody gets to spin this as a warning against big government. That money absolutely could have been put to much better use in other programs.