I'm not so convinced of your theory regarding the Taliban's protection of Al Quaeda, Amos. I'm not even so convinced that the people who planned 911 and carried it out really emanated from Al Quaeda camps in Afghanistan. They may have, but there are other possibilities.

In any case, say that there were allegedly some American White supremacists operating some secret camps in Idaho in 2001. Allegedly. And say that a horrible terrorist attack was carried out in 2001 on Russia or China, using hijacked airliners. Next, say that the Russians or Chinese asserted that those attacks had been carried out by people from the White supremacist groups in Idaho....and they extrapolated that to mean that the whole USA was therefore guilty of an act of war on Russia or China, and that they were going to bomb and invade the USA if all the White supremacists (American residents) weren't immediately extradited and turned over for trial in Moscow or Beijing.

What would be the USA's reaction to such a demand by the Russians and Chinese? OUTRAGE, that's what. The USA would tell them to go to hell, and would further ask for irrefutable proof that American residents had committed the attacks in Russia or China.

Say there were no living survivors among the terrorist attackers,   no one that the Russians or Chinese could bring forward and say for sure, "This person did it. And he's one of yours."

The whole situation would be ridiculous. And the Russians and Chinese would never push it that far anyway...because the risk to their own nations would be too great.

So....when the USA decided that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 911 attacks and that he was based in Afghanistan, the Afghan government did a perfectly normal thing that any government would do: they requested that the USA provide evidence to back up its charges. They requested proof. The USA did nothing of the sort. They simply issued the charges and said, basically, "Surrender to our will NOW or we will give you a taste of 'shock and awe'."

The Afghans did what any sovereign nation in the same circumstance would do. They asked for the incriminating evidence. They asked for irrefutable proof. They asked for due process of law. They said that if they were provided with that that they would arrest Osama Bin Laden and his people and try them.

They got none of that, they simply got attacked by the superpower...for something they didn't do, and something they could most likely not have known about or prevented from happening in the first place.

That's ridiculous. No country would have done other than the Afghans did, given the situation.

My town is NOT guilty if a band of criminals secretly based in my town goes and robs a bank in Toronto and kills someone. The police in my town require some kind of evidence in order to get warrants and go out and arrest those criminals. Not just hysterical accusations by Toronto. Evidence.

I believe, Amos, that that war was orchestrated for reasons other than 911...reasons that are still keeping American forces engaged in the Afghan war. I think 911 was equivalent to the Reichstag fire. It enabled a major political/strategic shift to occur by frightening and angering the American public into supporting some very radical policies both domestic and foreign that they would otherwise never have supported.