It is true that the Taliban hosted al Qaeda. That justified a punitive expedition that kicked them out of Kabul and savaged them with Daisy Cutters. But that does not mean the US must pacify Afghanistan and must fight the Taliban endlessly. Their comeback from their 2001/02 defeat proved their recuperative abilities. They have sufficient manpower reserves in untouchable safe havens to continue such a back and forth for a century.

Nor is brandishing the bloody 9/11 shirt a sensible argument for continuing that fight. Terror attacks can be mounted from scores of places other than Afghanistan. That country was in fact not vital to the bombing of the Twin towers. The hijackers were not Afghans, they were Saudis and Egyptians, etc. Their training was not in Afghanistan but in Florida and Oklahoma. They were mainly recruited from Hamburg mosques. Their mastermind was a Kuwaiti who did not work out of Afghanistan. Only OBL, the financier of the operation was located there. But he could have written his checks from anywhere. Indeed previously he had done so from the Sudan. So even fully annihilating the Taliban and putting a solid lid on Afghanistan would not make the US significantly more secure.

Bush’s deployment of 35,000 men in Afghanistan made sense; Obama’s of 105,000 plus another 64,000 mercenaries does not. We need to keep control of Kabul and have some bases in the country. Not because of the Taliban, but for leverage against Pakistan. That very unstble country with its nukes is a bristling danger which we will sooner or later have to deal with. US fascilities in Afghanistan will be critical in that confrontation.