Like WWI, and the WWI consequences in Communism, Nazism, WWII, Red China, and Korea before Viet Nam.....it was not “worth it”.
US involvement was avoidable at a dozen points and our objectives could have been accomplished in a far less costly manner by competent honest leadership.
Something we lack a lot of the time.
People are forgetting, or not old enough to remember, how aggressive the USSR was following WWII. They took Eastern Europe, supported the Chinese Communist Party and its winning civil war. The Korean War was all the USSR’s doing, as well as Vietnam. Someone had to do something...the UN was worse than useless. The Russians/Soviets have been desperate for a year-around seaport since they lost Port Arthur (top of Yellow Sea) in 1904.
We could have avoided getting involved in WWI and Vietnam.
WWII was necessary, we had no choice due to the mistakes we made in WWII.
We had to go in Afghanistan after 9/11. In retrospect, we should have gotten out sooner. OBL dead. Time to say adios. That was in 2011. We should have given our troops 6 months to prepare for the withdrawal and get out by 2012.