Hindsight is always 20/20.
-after the murder of 2,977 innocent civilians by the largest terrorist attack on american soil, it was clear the U.S. would be gunning for UBL and the rest of Al Qaida.
-the Afghanistan invasion was a foregone conclusion from the time the Taliban leadership started stalling on giving up UBL.
-what went wrong in Afghanistan was changing the focus of the mission from eradicating UBL/Al Qaida to "nation building". From the beginning, it was clear no one in the West would ever put in the funds and troops required to turn Afghanistan into a functioning democracy with a functioning semi-industrialized economy. The numbers and men required were astronomical and no western electorate would ever agree to it, so from the start, the "nation building" was done on the cheap and was doomed to fail. We should have cut our losses and left years ago.
-The Iraq invasion was a msiatke for the same reasons as in Afghanistan.
Was it worth it? probably not. OTOH, the U.S. thaught the ROW an important lesson. If you harbor or have ties to a terrorist organization that kills U.S. civilians, no one will protect you from the U.S. military.
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