Courtesy of The Counterterrorism Blog:

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks President Bush could not have been clearer in stating what was supposed to be the firm American Government position concerning terrorists and terrorism supporters. He said you were either with America against terrorism or with the terrorists, and if you supported terrorism, you were America’s enemy. Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded, conquered and occupied Afghanistan. We defeated the ruling Taliban who were very clearly supporters of the terrorist enemy al-Qaeda who had attacked us on 9/11. Very clearly, the Taliban had also become America’s enemy. Indeed, we sent our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen to kill, capture and conquer the Taliban. And they did.

Well before the invasion of Afghanistan, it had become very evident the Taliban was not much more than a group of backward-thinking Islamist thugs who had no interest in anything resembling modern democratic freedoms or even anything close to acceptable human rights within their heroin trade supported near-stone-aged country. Taliban entertainment amounted to flogging and executing women in the Kabul soccer stadium for offenses against society as severe as showing their ankles under their burquas. Those Taliban…what a crew. Arguably, beyond not killing OBL and all of his inner circle, not wasting every last one of the Taliban might have been the other mistake of our Afghan expedition, especially since remnants of the Taliban are now regaining strength in parts of the country and managing to kill some of our forces and our Afghan government allies. But, at least our valiant forces are still fighting and killing those Taliban thugs “over there”...

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