Because, this is where Al Quaeda, Osama Bin Laden and the people who actually attacked up on 9/11/01 are holed up. Al Quaeda in Afghanistan is ow, was in 2001 and was even well before 2001 when we realized it, the single biggest threat to American security in the history of the United States.
However, in SEVEN YEARS, we have spent less money fighting the war in Afghanistan than we spend EVERY THREE WEEKS IN IRAQ. If we do actually want to keep our nation safe against terrorist threats, there is no better place to send troops. As much as I’m a person who doesn’t believe in dumb wars, I think if someone comes to our soil and kills 3,000 of our people, then we should take those fuckers out by ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
Had Bush and the Neocons not been so busy trying to create a US friendly Democracy in the middle east by engaging in multiple, simultaneous pre-emptive theater wars, starting with Iraq in an effort to a) avenge Saddam’s assassination attempt on Bush’s daddy and b) control their oil supply, we would not have destroyed an entire civilization in Iraq, allowed Al Qaeda to set up base where they didn’t used to exist, and distract us from doing what we SHOULD have been doing all along.
I say better late than never. And I am VERY much anti-war, but it’s gotta be done, which is why we need to get troops out of Iraq so they can be redeployed to actually neutralize a real threat.