Afghanistan: Nothing is Good

I think that the chance to create a functional Afghanistan was lost when the Bush administration had targeted Iraq whenthey gained power. I'll ignore the fact that their myopia led them to ignore the Al Qaeda threat, which allowed the attacks on 9/11 to suceed. They purposely kept troops out of Afghanistan so that they would have enough to invade Iraq. Had the focus been on Afghanistan, then perhaps it could have been rebuilt had political solutions been the goal. That didn't happen due to the Bush administration being a neo-conservative regime. Inherently it was built to fail because neo-conservatism is built to fail.

"Inherently it was built to fail because neo-conservatism is built to fail." Jeff

Failure is in the eyes of the beholder. If you're a defense contractor or a connected politician, the actions in Afghanistan have been very profitable.

Treating 9/11 as a police action, going into Afghanistan and either taking OBL out or having the Taliban hand him over would have ended the raison d'etre for us being in the Middle East for more than a few months.

What chance of making a profit would that have provided?

Allowing OBL to remain free and active has provided a suitable foil to justify obscene military expenditures. 1.5 million dead innocent civilians are just collateral damage, kinda like coal miners.

If the US had gone into Afghanistan immediately after 9/11 and captured/killed OBL, Bush would not have been able to land on an aircraft carrier under a "Mission Accomplished" banner, Haliburton/KBR/Blackwater, etc. would not have become so prominent, and the redistribution of wealth from the working class/poor to the economic royalists would have been stifled...somewhat.

As a purely sociopath profit extraction modality, it was and remains brilliant. As a military action, not so much, and  is embarrassingly incompetent.

It is all about power and wealth after all.