The war in Afghanistan was justified.

I fight bullet points with bullet points I.You claim the Taliban posed no threat. In fact, they harbored Al Qaeda and allowed it to base in Afghanistan. A.AQ had influence over the government because without AQ the Taliban would be broke and powerless to fight off the opposition. According to Peter Bergen's "The Osama Bin Laden I Know", "Al Qaeda would provide the Taliban some much needed Cash and zealous Arab fighters, while the Taliban would provide a sure refuge and a carte blanche to build up the training camps of the al Qeada organization."(Page 161) Al Qeada and the Taliban were allies and they needed each other to function. AQ was also part of the Taliban army and therefore had power over it. B.Also according to Peter Bergan's book, "Al Qeada developed a number of training camps during this period…more promising graduates would receive advanced terrorist tactics" (Page 161) All of the 9/11 highjackers received this training and thousands of other terrorists did as well. C.Without the Taliban AQ's power is shrunk by a gigantic amount, there is a reason that there have no major terrorist attacks, and that's because Al Qaeda has no base and no control over any country. D.Osama Bin Laden has publicly pledged faithfulness to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader and is, therefore under him. II.You say the US supported the Taliban when they fought against the Soviet Union, but that was in the past when they were not affiliated with AQ and weren't even a party yet. They were just a bunch of soldiers trying to rid Afghanistan of the Soviets. This was a mistake on the part of the US, because the Taliban later turned against them. III.Even if the Taliban did not cause the attacks, AQ had its base there and the Taliban would not destroy it because they needed AQ. A.I have already showed you that AQ trained its terrorists there and is able to have all its operations there without needed to be secretive. Without this base, it has been much more difficult for AQ to attack us. B.Unless the Taliban was eliminated AQ could have attacked again. IV.AQ cannot operate well in another country because there is no other country that will allow it. A.Now, any country that AQ tries to carry out an operation in, let alone train soldiers in, hunts AQ down B.AQ has to operate in such secrecy that it cannot spread its message and cannot inform supporters of its location C.AQ has not been able to carry out any attacks on the US D.You say Saudi Arabia funded terrorism, but there is little evidence for this and Sauid Arabia does not train them or provide a safe haven for them V.You say terrorism has increased, but the attacks are small and nothing like what could have happened if AQ had been allowed to attack again A.AQ was planning on even more damaging attack VI. AQ would have been able to train many more terrorists then could have been created by anger and the terrorists they trained could have caused much more damage since they were much more skilled VII. As the Afghani government takes over, things in Afghanistan are settling down A. There is a stable government B. Now the US will not be part of the government and the Afghanis will except it even more VIII. The Taliban were terrible to their people A.The Taliban shot everything that moved in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif and then forbid people to burry the 8000 slaughtered inhabitants until they rotted and were eaten by dogs after six days B.Hazras were ethnically persecuted and were defiantly not better off C.They lashed and cut off body parts of women who did not follow their strict dress codes D.Strict Islamic law made most acts impossible and people lived in fear of punishment for simple mistakes in this law E.While living conditions may have been better, people's daily lives were marked by fear and many people were killed This is about whether or not the invasion of Afghanistan was justified, which is defined as "having an acceptable reason" and I think there are many acceptable reasons for invading Afghanistan.