Those are good points, Zim. Thank you for commenting.
So far, I appreciate the precise nature of the latest US intervention. I hope the costs, both human and financial, are comparatively minor -- and won't provoke too much of a response (escalation).
If so, then Trump found a good way through the mess. And, if so, I will eventually acknowledge it was a good idea.
Compare/contrast this with the estimated direct costs, financial and human, of the "War on Terror": Costs of the 20-year war on terror through 2021: $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths per http://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
And those are only direct costs, through 2021. The loss of secondary costs will doubtless be much higher and be covered, or buried, over decades. And the cost to US citizens in terms of loss of their fundamental freedoms? Does anyone think what lawful US citizens have lost in terms of privacy protections, alone, will ever be returned?
And considering 911 was the SECOND attack on the US "World Trade Center": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing....
Cui bono? Do the math. It always smelled to me.
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