“We did the Cole and we wanted the United States to react. And if they reacted, they are going to invade Afghanistan and that’s what we want … . Then we will start holy war against the Americans, exactly like the Soviets.” — Mohammed Atef, military commander of Al Qaeda, in November of 2000
Its easy to say that, but I'd hardly take his word for it.
Assuming it was actually true, that hardly implies that reacting was wrong, or that it was good for Al Qaeda. We did a lot of damage to Al Qaeda and its allies. I don't think things have gone nearly as well for Al Qaeda as their leadership thought they would (assuming Atef's words where actually their plan.
And not reacting after 9/11 would have made the US look weak and would have emboldened those on the fence to support Al Qaeda, or oppose the US themselves.
Also to the extent that they where determined to have war, sitting back and not doing anything would likely have meant that we would have had war after some other later atrocity.
our proxy war against the Soviet Union — our support of the mujahedeen — helped create Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda was created independently of our efforts, we had a common enemy, but that doesn't mean we created it or directly supported it. Its possible that it would have taken a hit, without our involvement. If the USSR won the war than Al Qaeda may have been weaker for awhile, but it would have moved elsewhere and continued. Meanwhile if the USSR had won the Soviet Empire might have continued for longer, which is reasonably considered a bigger issue than Al Qaeda.
in terms of the long-run impact on America’s economic and physical security, the Afghanistan war is as bad as the Vietnam War except for the ways in which it’s worse.
Its a much smaller portion of our economy, and its resulted in far less serious injury and esp. deaths to Americans. Its also had a lot less domestic and international political fallout. |
