Reply #68: I didn't bother complaining, but, yeah, I think our policy has been wrong.

[Jim Lane]

I can see a justification for the initial invasion of Afghanistan, to oust the Taliban. After the victory of the Northern Alliance, however, we should have left (over the course of several months). The Afghan civil war was not our concern, except to keep Afghanistan from being used as a base against us. Our message to the Taliban would be: "If you guys manage to get back in power, you can go back to eliminating religious freedom, controlling the press, oppressing women, etc., and we won't do anything about it, any more than we do in Saudi Arabia. If you let al-Qaeda run free, though, the most powerful military in the history of the world will again come down on your asses."

Probable results of this alternative policy: A thousand or so American soldiers are alive instead of dead; billions of dollars haven't been spent on "Operation Enduring Freedom"; and, for lack of an American base in an Afghan vassal state, bin Laden is still alive and at large. (Of course, it's possible that, even without a full-scale presence in Afghanistan, we could have bullied or bribed the government there to let us base JSOC there, but I'll assume the worst case, that bin Laden wouldn't be caught.)

I would take that tradeoff. Nothing bin Laden did since 9/11 did us as much harm as we did to ourselves by getting bogged down in Afghanistan.