With hindsight, should we have deployed in Afghanistan?

It should have started there and ended there. The whole Iraq thing got US off track....

However we should have gone in with a goal, to defeat the enemy. Then we should have waged war like we did in WW2 against the Germans and Japanese. Had we done that we would have destroyed the Taliban and Al-Qaeda would have been crushed in months. Then we should have established a government friendly to the US. We should have been done in Afghanistan long ago.

we tried to, but our motorized vehicles couldn't handle the steep mountainous terrain (which is where AQ withdrew to the moment we arrived). The only way to get around there is to follow the "roads" in the valleys. Then they have a strategic advantage as they stay up high and ambush us. It's happened over and over.

If that was where the terrorist training camp was we should have got rid of that and then left. Just tell the Afghans that if they let the camp open up again we will come again and bomb it. The Taliban had no particular love of the Al-Quida. There were Pakistan military in the country so the US forces left a corridor open for them to escape back into Pakistan and that is how Bin Laden escaped. He left with the Pakistan military personnel and then lived under their protection for years. What did Bush say? "I don't know where he is and I don't spend any time thinking about it." Tell that to all the dead heros.

you could be right gocar. Just go after the training sites. Unfortunately they've now moved to Yemen etc. But we could have moved too. And saved all those afghanis who are killed and had nothing to do with it. Good answer.

We should have never went to the middle east to begin with, Vietnam in the Sand.

I like what you say, but I'm worried about the word "standing". Being right, doing good has little to do with "standing".

We got Bin Laden & his bunch.They were there.

even though they weren't really wanted?

We should have simply bombed the hell out of them and then kept a goodly supply of drones busy. Collateral damage be damned.

before you say that, did any of the 9/11 bombers come from Afghanistan?

Good thing genocidal maniacs like you aren't in charge of the military (at least that's what I hope).

no way!

And we should have focused on them and them alone.

Should have known from the start, rather than in hindsight. I would think we could have let our spooks carry out a campaign on the sly and let some other muslim faction take the rap for it all. They're always on the brink of jihad, anyway. :O)