Personally I was not shocked, the initial stroke on Kabul in an attempt to get the hands on OBL was to be expected after the then Afghan government did not cooperate. The action was partly backed (with a stretch) by international law. The "horrified" part came when GWB et.al. decided the need to "bring democracy" to the country.Lani wrote: ↑Sat Jul 03, 2021 10:18 am I was horrified when Bush II decided to attack Afghanistan. The USSR failed, but it's not true that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires." Failures occurred when the invaders sought to force changes in the culture, which is what the US (and others) did.
Afghanistan is a crossroad nation, so it has a long history of assaults.► Show Spoiler
Of course they ignored the social tribal structure that has some basic democratic elements ingrained, the tribal head is elected by the tribe and is not a guranteed position, he can get replaced is he messes with the community. And the country government was democratically controlled by the Loya jirga, the parliament of the tribal leaders.