I think the invasion of Afghanistan was inevitable, but not Iraq. Afghanistan was a big mistake (even Rthe USSR, with a land border, couldnt handle it) but Iraq was worse and bizarre.
Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK
US 'planned attack on Taleban'
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.
Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26410.htm
U.S. government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and recently posted on the website of the George Washington University National Security Archive shed some additional light on talks with the Taliban prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including with regard to the repeated Taliban offers to hand over Osama bin Laden, and the role of Pakistan before and after the attacks.[1]
...
It is already known that the U.S. had demanded in secret discussions with the Taliban that bin Laden be handed over for more than three years prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The talks continued “until just days before” the attacks, according to a Washington Post report the month following the attacks. But a compromise solution such as the above that would offer the Taliban a face-saving way out of the impasse was never seriously considered. Instead, “State Department officials refused to soften their demand that bin Laden face trial in the U.S. justice system.”
The United States today rejected yet another offer by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in a third country if the U.S. presents evidence against bin Laden and stops air attacks.
...
"There's no need to discuss it," Bush said. "We know he's guilty. Just turn him over. … There's nothing to negotiate about. They're harboring a terrorist and they need to turn him over."
Couldn't Osama claim that he knew there were criminals in those buildings that he attacked and that there is nothing to negotiate about?
This is largely hindsight bias--because we did go to war with Afghanistan in response to 9/11, you look back at planning prior to 9/11 and perceive it as proof that war with Afghanistan was inevitable.
Prior planning is not proof of future action. For instance the U.S. spent decades planning in great detail how to go to war with the USSR, but we never did it.
Put another way--every war-like situation the U.S. has ever entered was pre-planned to some extent. But we also planned for a great many wars that never happened.
I'm not arguing justice or decency. Simply that in response to the 9/11 attack the US was going to do something, and Afghanistan was that something. I think in pure pragmatic terms it was a stupid something.
From his own point of view. Osama had declared war on the US and picked what he considered to be strategic targets. In purely military terms I think he picked his targets very well.
