[geofft]

I saw this recently: "We lost the war. Losing wars often puts you in a worse position. That's one reason starting wars you are unlikely to win is a bad idea." https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/1426941800468652039

That should be obvious to everyone, but in 2001 it was unpatriotic and politically incorrect to ask whether the US was capable of winning the war.

[trynumber9]

As part of the Doha agreement the Taliban agreed not to support Al-Qaeda. Not a victory but it was basically the US casus belli.

[mindslight]

I'd go further and say that in 2001 "the war" wasn't even that well defined. It seemed to be more about the action of attacking rather than any coherent vision. Iraq was at least up for debate, whereas Afghanistan was like well of course we need to attack them "back" how could you think otherwise?

[wiredfool]

Yeah. But there were a significant number of people who grew up seeing the Russians get beaten in Afghanistan, thought it was a decent lesson to learn without being involved, and then lo and behold, your country gets into a land war in Asia and gets to learn it for themselves.