Why are we in Afghanistan? he asks; the inescapable answer: mission creep

Over the years I have heard 10 or more reasons, but not one that is convincing. "This will not end well," George Will wrote, and I agree with that. Yes, President Obama inherited the Afghanistan war, but he has dug himself in deeper, and as they say he owns it now. It will be hard for him either to win it or to extricate us.

Why are we there? At first it was retaliation for 9/11. We should "get the people who attacked us," as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. It is the one reason that Americans understand and do accept. I was certainly in favor of the Afghanistan invasion of 2001, and perhaps that's why Obama called it the necessary war. Striking at al Qaeda made sense in a way that invading Iraq never did. But that was a reason for going into Afghanistan, not a reason for still being there eight and a half years later.