Just watched the Boy Boy video on George Bush’s Masterclass, and they made me think about which U.S. President was actually worse.
Just watched the Boy Boy video on George Bush’s Masterclass, and they made me think about which U.S. President was actually worse.
They offered him up to be tried in a third country and were open to negotiating. That’s still offering him up. The invasion just ensured that the Taliban and even Al Queda had plenty of new recruits. Bin Laden also remained at large for almost another decade. I’d consider it an abject failure if it wasn’t clear that the Bush administration didn’t really give a damn about their stated objectives.
Instead they just wanted to extend the US’s military influence into Central Asia and make a quick buck of military contracts in the process.
The Taliban were negotiating on behalf of some who launched such a large attack that it could have been considered to be an act of war, and even then were proposing methods that would allow bin Laden to escape and were outside international norms for handling criminals.
And the attempted capture of bin Laden was a failure, but we are looking back on what happened. The actual successful capture of bin Laden involved the breaching of sovereignty of a nuclear power to attack him in a night operation. Pakistan wasn’t even given the option to negotiate.