Thought you would come back. Before you try to paint this as me endorsing Kremlin tactics, I'm just pointing out that there are several different ways of making intelligence warfare to a individual (a.k.a Osama Bin Laden) without resorting to invading countries and destroying everything in the way, as you prefer to defend behind the "initial invasion" rhethoric.
Right...
Let me just put away the insane point you made where the U.S. should be more like Russia but not unilaterally invade and annex entire countries Russia because those don't really count because they're "prior-Soviet countries." No, more like Russia that brutally assassinates its political enemies then lies about it to the world.
Fine, okay. Then you agree than an invasion can be justified then?
Because let's peel back this ridiculous statement. Russia (Putin) is able to assassinate their political opponents because they are either in Russia or in countries where Russia has a lot of assets (ie Europe). Thus they have no trouble locating and killing their "enemies," as often these civilians are not hiding. We are talking about political leaders, diplomats, scientists, scholars all of whom are openly living their life, often aware they have been marked an enemy but choosing to not back down. Russia doesn't have to do much work to get to these people.
On the other hand, let's turn now to UBL. Bin-Laden had been hiding in Afghanistan since the mid-90's. America did not have any real presence in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. It has virtually zero assets within Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. We did not even maintain an embassy in the country. And prior to 9/11, the U.S. had repeatedly sought to kill Bin-Laden to no avail. As such, we repeatedly tried to negotiate with the Taliban to give Bin-Laden up. However, the Taliban were unwilling to do so despite repeated attempts, warnings, and threats of consequences should Bin-Laden carry out another terrorist attack on Americans. And then 9/11 happened and they still refused to give them up.
So by your own logic, how exactly can the U.S. have Bin-Laden "jump out of a window" without invading the country?
The question is simple, assuming the Taliban would never have given up Bin-Laden was the U.S. justified in going in to eliminate him and Al-Qaeda? Either yes or no? Talking about what Bush decided to expand the war to and all the civilian deaths that came later is a separate point after the fact. Because if you're playing revisionist history then there is no need to talk about future civilian deaths caused by the War on Terror when a limited invasion would've stopped that from happening. So again, it's either a yes or no regarding invasion justification assuming the Taliban would not give him up.
Answer that then come back to me.
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