> I dont fault him for taking out the OBL supporting Taliban and getting some payback for 911 <
Oh, I totally agree. W should have destroyed every last Taliban resource in Afghanistan. Make the bricks bounce. Then make the bricks bounce some more. This could have been done solely by air power and special forces strikes.
W’s great mistake was going the LBJ route: He tried to win the hearts and minds of the population - a population that was stuck in the 8th century, and brainwashed by death cult religion.
That was a fool’s errand, made even worse by his invasion of Iraq. That upset the whole applecart in the region.
I rank W among the three worst US presidents ever. The other two are Wilson and FDR. But FDR as a domestic president only. He was a great wartime leader.
(Sorry. Rant off.)
As the British and the Russians and ultimately us too learned, Afghanistan is essentially unconquerable without 100% per cent of the natives, and that has been proven to be impossible to attain too. Leave them to their opium growing and misogyny; but if they sponsor terrorize or provide a haven for same again, bomb them mercilessly and continually.
Too harsh. Hell just in the last sixty years: LBJ, Carter, and Obozo… and Biden.