The Taliban is the modern day Viet Cong. They are smart, battle hardened, and expert at guerrilla fighting. There are very few instances of a guerrilla army being defeated. You know what's funny. England called our Founding Forefathers terrorists. You know who won that battle. I support our troops. The are being used like cheap cannon fodder. The War of Terrorism is the new War of Drugs. There is no motivation to win anything. A perpetual war keeps Lockheed Martin, Haliburton, and the like making big money. A virtual boogie man ensures a never ending war. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZjKKUEHTKk The point is two fold. We can't beat them and we have no desire to beat them, the Taliban. So why are we there? Oil access, Lithium. Judge people by what the do not what they say. Question Authority. Please consider voting for Tancredo if you are in Colorado.
The only thing we would build in Afghanistan would be permanent military bases. Check the post which states we spend ~360B on military for every 8B we spend on the Afghan people.
A lot of people don't know that after the Tet offensive, US and south Vietnam forces outnumbered the NVA by something like 3 or 4 to 1. And we still lost. If the 35000 number is to be believed, US and allies now outnumber the Taliban somewhere between 3 to 1 and 4 to 1. We should be launching constant, aggressive, WWII like actions against the Taliban to force them to fight so we can root them out. If you outnumber an enemy by this much and you are not constantly engaging them, you are wasting time and money.
What gives you the right to build anything in someone elses backyard. Nothing, but building a school or a bridge is better than dropping daisy cutters. At least if it was in my backyard, I would vote for the school instead of the bomb, but maybe it is just me...
Maybe, but most of all it was simply an overwhelming post 9/11 national desire to 'go over there and kick some ass for what they did to us'.