It could have been, had we not changed to an ass from a horse in midstream. Afghanistan? No way.

Mistake from the beginning. Such a waste of our most precious treasure. Semper Fi

No.

It was fought for the wrong reasons, poorly conceived, poorly led, pooly conducted and left conditions in the mid-east worse, not better.

How many 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi?

How many were Saudi Arabian?

Which country was attacked as a response to 9/11?
.

So, how now does the ledger read, 10 years on?

The ledger needs to be balanced against the cost of doing nothing. We failed to do this during the Clinton years and we ended up with 9/11.

Buchanan makes a very self righteousness and twirpish assessment of a much bigger issue.

Very disappointed in Buchanan, as usual.

No

NO! Emphatically. The political class, led by Bush and all his enablers (see Grover Norquist et al) never identified the enemy. In fact, they identified the real enemy, the one that attacked us on 9/11, as "a religion of peace." He took us to war in Iraq and gave the screaming, filthy Democrat Left a reason to rise up from the primordial ooze to which Ronald Reagan consigned them. Bush was/is an ignorant fool.

Let´s see.....

One of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century handed over to his own people for the ultimate justice....Mission Accomplished

Saddam´s capacity to manufacture WMD, which he maintained until we invaded per the Kay Report ( the actual stated reason, not "stockpiles of WMD" ) and his refusal to allow the UN to inspect both neutralized by our actions . . . Mission Accomplished

During the insurgency, after OBL declared Iraq to be the field of battle against the infidel, our military drew in and slaughtered thousands, if not hundreds of thousand foreign jihadis on our term at the place of our choosing . .... just like GWB promised in his 9/21/01 address before Congress, the nation and the world . . ....Mission Accomplished

GWB also said in that speech that any nation that harbors terrorists opened itself to military action by the US. Saddam harbor end and refused to give up Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal. They are both dead . . . Mission Accomplished

Most important, we gave the Iraqi people a chance to determine their own destiny . . . Mission Accomplished

We were in a global war on terror. Aside from shooting at our planes, attempting to assassinate a US president and not honoring his post Kuwait invasion treaty with the US, Saddam encouraged, facilitated, funded and advocated for terroris throughout the region....but not any more.........Mission Accomplished

Continued.........

We have a destructive anti- American leftist in our White House who got there by riding a wave of lies, distortions and outright smears against our Commander-in-Chief during a time of war. The lies came from the left, were promulgated by the MSM and have now permeated the historic record. Buchanan and the rest of those who think themselves conservatives ought to be ashamed of themselves for buying into this

I´ve argued years ago that the only justification for continued involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was to provide a pincer-type military move on Iran. Since that is not likely to happen, both continued efforts were a waste of blood and treasure once Saddam and the Al-Qaeda camps were eliminated. The WMDs apparently went to Syria: are we to invade there?

Remember, George W. Bush campaigned against "nation-building".

If the commander-in-chief is going to insist our troops fight with one hand tied behind their back, don´t send them.

#7 and continued in #8, thank you for stating many key points.

Saddam was a danger in many ways, and needed to go.
The Mideast, unfortunately, is an enormously troubled area, and will remain so.
My opinion is that far too many of the people there are just plain nuts.

My preference is that we avoid committing our ground forces, and whenever possible,
stick to cruise missiles, drones, and, as needed, go ahead with our nukes.
After all, we are paying for them.
Why kill our kids when we can simply nuke the enemy? Dead is dead.
And it´s cheaper and faster.

Probably would not be allowed to list the nations I would nuke now if I could.
But the world would be a far better place for it.
We should have castrated Russia and China in the 1940´s when we had a world-wide
nuclear monopoly.
But we are spineless.
So we kill our own kids later instead (in Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, etc.).
Or we let Mao kill 70 million of his own people.

It´s an ugly world, and we´re the cop.
May as well man up, own it, and git her done.

Talleyrand remarked about a Czarist defeat:"It was far, far worse that a military catastrophe; it was a mistake. And great nations cannot afford such mistakes and remain great!" Iraq, was a disaster of the first magnitude, owned 100% by Bush; the core reason we have Obama. Some facts. After Schwarzkopf drove the Iraqi´s from Kuwait; the USAF effectively partitioned Iraq from the air, creating ´no fly zones´ in the north from Mosul, to protect the Kurds and in the south from Basra, to protect the Shiite. W/our manned and drone tech, we ´killed´ anything that moved at will, and had isolated Baghdad. Yet Bush opted for a land war, which Tommy Franks executed brilliantly w/a helo/tank blitz through the Euphrates and Tigris Valley, storming Baghdad in less than 100 days. To this day, his victory rivals Alexander´s who crushed the Persians at Gaugamela, not far away. That was the decisive moment to pacify Iraq and impose our will. So where was the plan. THERE WAS NO PLAN!!! Bush, in thrall to arab democracy, fantasized Baghdad as Paris ´44 all over again; w/gleeful Iraqi´s showering our troops w/candy, flowers and kisses. In fact, 99% of our casualties were sustained after Saddam´s fall. The fruits of Bush´s buffoonery and incompetence are self evident and mute testament to Talleyrand´s observation. Buchanan is much to kind.

I don´t see Saddam or that foreign minister liar on my tv anymore. But it has been replaced with Obama´s face which must be emblazoned on every shot.

What is done is done, but going to the ME was akin to shoving your fist into a beehive. They love living in the past, fighting, and blowing each other up.

Was it worth the lives of our soldiers ?

Will Washington ever stop sending our tax dollars to hellholes that will always hate US ?