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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   17792 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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correctly calling that the invasions were unlikely to apprehend the people responsible for September 11

What do you mean by this? To the best of my understanding, al-Qaeda was a transnational movement that had coalesced geographically in Afghanistan and had deep and abiding ties to Pakistan prior to September 11. When the US invaded Afghanistan, substantial parts of al-Qaeda fled to Pakistan, where all five of those currently on trial for 9/11 were apprehended with the help of Pakistani security services. Except perhaps for al-Baluchi, who operated in the UAE, it seems plausible that the US invasion facilitated their capture by constraining their operating environment. Presumably, without the invasion of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda would have remained in hiding in Afghanistan given the relative willingness of Pakistani intelligence to cooperate with the Central Intelligence Agency. Similarly, the invasion of Afghanistan facilitated the killing of bin Laden, as US forces staged in Afghanistan to carry out the operation.

I think there's an interesting counterfactual question to be had as to whether the US could have captured KSM and his associates and captured or killed bin Laden without invading Afghanistan, and whether doing so would have been more humane, just, cost-efficient and so on, but from what I can tell in the world we actually got it seems like the invasions did assist in the apprehension and/or killing of those responsible.

I have read offical Iraq War after-action reports that basically concede that the United States would not have invaded Iraq if they hadn't been the only country in the world to not send official condolences after 9-11.

I'm very open to counter-evidence here but I am not sure how new (and very interesting!) facts about the invasion of Iraq is going to change my opinion about the invasion of Afghanistan.

were apprehended with the help of Pakistani security services.

Despite, not with. Much of the trick to catching bin Laden was cutting Pakistan out of the loop on promising leads to his location.

My understanding from reviewing the captures of the 5 who are currently on trial is that they were captured by Pakistani security services, with the CIA involved.

Now, it seems quite possible that the Pakistanis were only so "helpful" because they didn't have any other real choice.

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