The Afghanistan War: Absurdity or Necessity?

[Alex]

No, can't keep it out forever. No more than winning World War II kept Nazi's out of Germany.

I do think it is possible to establish an infrastructure that would make it very difficult for the Taliban to achieve significant power again.

Ignoring the question of Al Qaeda (and I think I've been pretty consistent that "war" against Al Qaeda is a pretty meaningless concept), having displaced the Taliban from their position of power, accepting that their return to power would be a human rights catastrophe, what responsibility do we have to do our best to prevent that happening before leaving?

As Colin Powell said it, "you break it you buy it." Regardless of how justified the initial war was, and how successfully accomplished the initial goals have been I'd argue we have a responsibility to not say "ok, Taliban, it's all yours so long as you don't let Al Qaeda come back; enjoy the complete dehumanization of half your population!"

Would a return to Afghanistant 1999 be acceptable if we were in a direct position to try and prevent it?

To me? For the most part yes, even with the recognition that any equilibrium achieved is still going to be reasonably far from what we consider acceptable for the United States, so long as there seems to be a serious native desire for it as well.