Comment by throwaway0a5e
4 years ago
Afghanistan was invaded because the people in charge of it were tragically unwilling to turn over their unruly house guests and we were tragically unwilling to demand they do so in a contextually appropriate way. I think it is probably one of the biggest tragedies of foreign diplomacy in recent US history.
In hindsight the Taliban probably could have negotiated a "we'd love to get rid of the terrorists but we need your help" deal and then just let us pump them full of military aid on the condition that they add the groups we want to their list of persecuted people. It's not like we hated them out of principal. These were the same guys we armed to kick out the Russians. Taking a page straight out of the South America playbook would not have been that big a stretch.
>Afghanistan was invaded because the people in charge of it were tragically unwilling to turn over their unruly house guests
The Taliban were invaded because they refused to hand over bin Laden without the US supplying evidence that he was guilty.
It's hard to overestimate just how much the US was baying for blood at that point. It's plausible that waiting for evidence might have meant paying a high political price.
This bloodlust was later channeled into manufacturing consent for the invasion of Iraq.