The war in Afghanistan has cost a thousand American lives and billions of dollars.
How did we get into that mess — and how do we get out of it?
Most Americans surely don’t know.
Our Afghanistan involvement began as a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York, to remove al-Qaida harbored in Afghanistan, and “get” Osama bin Laden, who was behind the New York and Washington hijacked-airliner attacks.
Also, we had been previously troubled by long Russian involvement in Afghanistan. In our interests, we wanted to help stabilize a local, anti-Russian government.