The fundamental question of all this is: Did the US have the right to invade and occupy Afghanistan? I would say not.

The way I see it 11/09/01 was a strictly terrorist attack by a terrorist group or by those acting on behalf of a terrorist group, not on behalf of any regime, and certainly not on behalf of the Taliban regime. Yes there may have been an element, probably including the Taliban, laughing their socks off at the United States' misfortune, but the fact remains that there is no evidence that the Taliban regime orchestrated or carried out the attack . None of the terrorists themselves were Afghans, in fact they were mostly Saudis. The link to Al Qaeda was based on a Saudi in Afghanistan claiming that he had orchestrated the attacks. So you have a group of Saudis actually carrying out the attack and another Saudi claiming to have been behind it.

Many of you are also ignoring the excuses, and the lies. Bin Laden was never taken, and never brought to account. This was supposed to be the main objective/for going in there in the first place, but was in fact hollow propaganda. When the questions started popping up, the usual excuses started to get churned out, the Taliban were evil and needed to be removed etc. The same happened in Iraq after the WMD debacle, Saddam was harbouring terrorists, linked to Bin Laden even, false, the ba'athists were an evil and repressive regime, true, as were the Taliban,very true, and as are the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and hundreds of other regimes worldwide. The problem I have with this is that invading on a trumped up pretext failing to find the man and then when it is obvious there's nothing else for it, they resort to the same old "they were evil/harbouring terrorists/thinking of building wmds/we're liberating them" line.

What I find disturbing is this very selective meddling in the affairs of other sovereign states (mostly middle eastern or asian ones that either have some of the worlds largest oil reserves or whose territory involves a certain pipeline) around the world. Not having same kind of faith in the US and UK governments as some of you, I'm not so sure that this meddling is for the good of those being meddled with. I also doubt it is for the good of US citizens or UK subjects.