A measure of security is certainly required, LEJ. I'll agree with that. I think it would be better if such security was provided by local troops, rather than foreign troops. The USA ostensibly went into Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy Al Queda camps and capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and other Al Queda commanders.

How did that morph into "nation-building"? And why?

The USA ostensibly went into Iraq a couple of years later to stop Saddam from building "weapons of mass destruction". Ha. Ha. The weapons were never even there.

How did that morph into "nation-building"? And why?

I don't believe the public was ever told the real truth about why the USA and the UK have gone into either Afghanistan or Iraq. I think they went into both those countries with the intention of occupying them and staying, building permanent military bases, and permanently controlling those regions (by proxy through political puppets like Karzai)...partly because of oil, partly because of wanting to surround and eventually attack Iran, partly because of wanting to establish a sphere of influence on Russia's southern borders and mainly just to control that whole area.

I don't think there was ever any real intention to confront WMDs in Iraq, and I think Al Queda is primarily a red herring that is used to scare people (although I'm not saying Al Queda is totally fictional, I'm just saying they are relatively unimportant in the greater scheme of things because they are a very small outfit with very little real capability).

The USA has no business nation-building anywhere except within American borders. That's where Americans need to apply their skills nation-building, and that's where they have a right to do it. This other stuff isn't nation-building, it's empire building, plain and simple. It's colonialism under another name.

The Americans and Brits are doing in Afghanistan what the Russians once did in Afghanistan, and the Pashtuns are resisting them. Naturally this is of some benefit to the Hazaras, because the more numerous Pashtuns have always been very hard on the Hazaras, but that does not justify what the USA and the UK are doing, because they did not go there to help the Hazaras, they went there to help themselves.

The Hazaras are coincidental beneficiaries of the imperial strategy, just like the Montagnards in Vietnam were coincidental beneficiaries of the American presence there during the Vietnam War. It's a standard tactic of imperial invaders to befriend local minority groups in a colonized nation and to use them as allies against the local majority. The Americans did that in Vietnam, using Catholics and Montagnards as allies against the majority of Vietnamese Buddhists. The Spanish once did that in Mexico, using Tlaxcalans and many other weaker tribes of Mexican Indians against the more powerful Aztecs.

Empires do this because it's a smart temporary strategy for dividing and conquering a native people, but they don't do it to help anyone but themselves, and the local people end up paying the price for it in blood and sorrow.