Posted on 11/11/2025 10:25:31 AM PST by RandFan
The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on September 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though others contemplated actions in Iraq, including long-standing plans for toppling Pres. Saddam Hussein. Bush demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar “deliver to [the] United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land,” and when Omar refused, U.S. officials began implementing a plan for war.
The campaign in Afghanistan started covertly on September 26, with a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team known as Jawbreaker arriving in the country and, working with anti-Taliban allies, initiating a strategy for overthrowing the regime. U.S. officials hoped that by partnering with the Afghans they could avoid deploying a large force to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were especially concerned that the United States not be drawn into a protracted occupation of Afghanistan, as had occurred with the Soviets more than two decades prior. The United States relied primarily on the Northern Alliance, which had just lost Massoud but had regrouped under other commanders, including Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim and Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek. The Americans also teamed with anti-Taliban Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan, including a little-known tribal leader named Hamid Karzai.
(Excerpt) Read more at britannica.com ...
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Was there another way perhaps working with the Northern Alliance rather than a full on ground invasion and occupation? Some have said it should have been over a lot quicker and still no one knows what happened to their leader Mullah Mohammed Omar?
Today the Taliban are back in charge so things have gone full circle as far as that was concerned.
Britannica say around 2,400 servicemen casualties and 20,000+ injured.
Which still strikes me as odd, considering all but one of the airline terrorist crew were Saudi Arabian nationals.
I have yet to hear an adequate explanation for that oddity.
Why didn't we have a really good look at that?
George W. Bush was garbage, both on the domestic front and as a war president.
So much blood and treasure lost, and for nothing. And it’s all on Bush. He set the tone. The presidents who followed him were just bit players.
I am told to hate the action, but not the man. So I’d better stop here before I break that rule.
Sounds like a loss, at least as presented.
My reaction on Sept 12, 2001 was: "OK, now we will finally seal the borders, and ban travel and immigration for anyone from at least 10-15 Muslim countries. That's obviously the easiest and cheapest anti-terror measure we could take."
The fact we effectively did the opposite tells me 9-11, and the narrative for the Afghan / Iraq wars were mostly lies.
Wow. Interesting response
And yeah, the cost of war rarely debated. Trillions.
Wow. Interesting response
And yeah, the cost of war rarely debated. Trillions.
> Wow. Interesting response <
To which I’d add: George W. Bush had the lessons of Vietnam right before him. Yet he repeated almost every one of LBJ’s mistakes. It’s unforgivable, in my mind anyway.
Building 7
Bkmk
Yep
The Bushes have a really close relationship with the Saudi royal family going back to Prescott Bush.
Things that make you go
Hmmm
But when your nation is attacked foreign entanglements go out the window.
Ideally
That was an urban renewal project, haven’t you heard?
My idea of a "full on ground invasion" was to kill however many it took for Afghanistan to surrender. That's how we used to win wars. Not by "winning over hearts and minds".
Jesse High Jackson was right about very few things in his time in the spotlight. One of those was his cry to “Stay out the Bushes”. GW and GHW were bad Presidents, and public servants.
GHW was part a parcel of the CIA and dare I say Mossad plot to kill JFK, ran drugs out of Central America to “fund the Contra?” Call boys in the White House, Iraq war 1, then of course GW and the 9/11 failure to stop the known attack, then Iraq war 2, Afghanistan et al.
If we had only torn the CIA into pieces like JFK said.
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