I've highlighted the word "organization" because it's and important thing to note here. Both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are organizations, not countries. The former is an international terrorist organization while the latter is an afghani national group that really has few goals after "removing infidels from afghani soil". I don't think that you can fight international terrorist organizations in one country with infantrymen on mountaintops. It requires a different approach, most of which we're doing in one way or another.
I'll go with you on Al Qaeda, but Taliban was the Government of Afghanistan (even though I'll give you that was more than default by anything). However, it is important to note that the whole reason we beat back the Taliban and their forces in the first place was through the use of ground forces... remember the Northern Alliance (supported by US Special Forces and American Air Power).
I'm not saying we deserved 9/11 or that we're the direct cause of it, I'm saying that we've done a lot to provoke and instill hatred against us in arabs. Clearly, we don't have a time machine, but we can however control what we do in the future, and fueling the hatred they already have for us only exacerbates the core problem and doesn't solve it.
If I were president on 9/12 I'd do what I described in the previous post. I'd start by using every political tool in my arsenal including diplomatic relations to enforce economic sanctions on the extremist groups in question. I'd have their funding seized and cut off. I'd use the full power of intelligence agencies to gather information for direct strikes against the heart of the organization. The error we made was invading Afghanistan with a standard ground force Army and expecting to redo their entire governmental structure.
I didn't mean to imply, like many on this forum would, that your "one of them liberals who think we deserved 9/11". My point was only that we have to deal with the realities as they are today, not how we wish they were. Moving on though, your options wouldn't of worked. Or should I say, didn't work. For one things, it's kind of hard to install sanctions on a country whose #1 cash crop isn't exactly legal in the US. Besides, it's not exactly like they were living the high life:
And if you recall, we actually did launch air attacks against Al Qaeda, twice as I recall. Back in 1998 when we lobbed cruise missiles at targets inside Sudan and Afghanistan? Not exactly like that did any good in the end did it? The thing is, Air Power cannot win the war on it's own. If it could, UK would of been defeated during the Battle of Britain, or conversely, with Germany during the Allied Air Campaign against them. And then there was Vietnam where we dropped 5 times as much tonnage in an effort to get them to surrender. Actually, there was one time that Air Power ended a war.... it's when we dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Japan. So unless your advocating dusting out a few nukes and making a giant glass crater out of Afghanistan, there really is no way to options to win a war against extremism through air power. (By the way, if that ever does become an option, put me down for a maybe.)
You're positively right. As soon as we leave, Afghanistan will degenerate back down to where it was, or worse, like it has in Iraq. How has this been a solution to our problems? We've spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives on fighting a war that in the end will not have a long lasting effect on Afghanistan. Can you quantify how much safer we are because of this war? How much safer would we be for the inevitable future attack if we spent those trillions of dollars on protecting America at home?
The goal should be destroying the extremist organization in question while interfering as little as possible into the everyday life of the local populace. Putting American soldiers on every street corner only tends to instill an "us vs. them" mentality among the locals. You simply can't fight extremist political movements with foot soldiers, it requires a different approach.
There hasn't been a major terrorist attack from Al Qaeda since 9/11. And the attacks on the homeland that has occurred have been caused by people who simply espoused the cause, but weren't actually trained or financed by Al Qaeda. Considering there had been two major incidents prior to that (Kenya and Cole Bombings), I'd say in that case, it's done it's job. Also, as a Libertarian, you would agree that government spending is by far the least effective way of getting things done in this country. After all, even after a trillion dollar stimulus package, the economy is just barely chugging along ... five years after the recession ended.
At the end of the day, you can't destroy these extremist organizations from bombings. And for every target you hit, there's another one that unintentionally kills a bunch of civilians that only serves to recruit more to their extremist cause. At this point their like weeds; you pull a couple here and there, and in a few weeks they'll of already multiplied. At the very least with Iraq, we left a functioning government. Of course, we leave them alone for a year and everything goes to hell. What's worse, is that Iraq's problem has nothing to do with US Policy! Yes, the fact that Maliki is in power, instead of Saddam, is the result of US Action. But what I mean is that the current conflict has nothing to do with the US, but instead, action prejudices that we as a nation are just beginning to understand.