What's the Benefit of Fighting in Afghanistan?

An A-10 Thunderbolt II receives fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker July 10, 2014, over Eastern Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Matthew Bruch/Released)

In The American Conservative, Scott Horton writes that America’s war in Afghanistan does more to endanger Americans than it does to keep them safe. He writes (abridged):

In 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan and quickly smashed the Taliban government. It also killed hundreds of members of the al Qaeda group that had launched the attacks, although leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri escaped to Pakistan, along with about 200 followers. Ever since, we have been told that the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan must continue indefinitely or else al Qaeda will return and make the country once again into a “safe haven” from which to attack the United States. In U.S. political discourse and news stories, this has often been stated as a flat fact, beyond dispute.

Trump says he will achieve victory in Afghanistan, but he embraces the same failed and counterproductive policies that have served to increase the size and strength of the Taliban-based insurgency, Haqqani Network and now ISIS. And, while the government still invokes the hollow safe haven myth and insists it is defending Americans from Afghanistan-based terrorism, its ongoing war in that troubled land, with no end in sight, only puts Americans in greater danger.