“What would the proper word be?”
“Operations,” “military action,” “war” even “invasion,” would all be accurate. “Intervention” is a loaded term implying that it was really someone else’s fight and we had no real warrant or direct cause to be there.
It is a weasel word though because one can ignore this connotation and point out that we did in fact intervene in the conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. This would only be in the same sense that we “intervened” in the existing Sino-Japanese conflict after Pearl Harbor, however.
Why do we continue to screw around with this hit and miss operation? We have the capabilities to carpet bomb every inch of that border area and end this mess once and for all. We could make foothills out of those mountains they are hiding in. Why the hell don’t we do it? The world would be better off with the loss of these murderers, they are certainly not producing anything but terror!