One conservative right wing religious regime attacks another conservative right wing religious regime. Neither side believed in womens rights, nor the rights of non believers and both were convinced God was on their side. Both sides also believed that their respective countries were not religious enough, and that was the cause of their problems.
The following is based on my understanding of the situation having read the excellent "The Looming Tower" which is an indepth history of the roots of al Qaeda up until the 911 attacks. I read it a few years ago, so some of this may just be plain wrong:
Al Qaeda was funded with a lot more Saudi money than Afgan money. Bin Laden was the son of a rather rich Saudi and had connections to the Saudi government. The Saudi Government wanted to control Bin Laden but ultimately couldn't and he was forced out of the country. However Bin Laden did get a lot of funding from rich Saudi individuals to fund al Qaeda.
The whole mantra behind 911 was to get the Americans to start a war in Afghanistan. Bin Laden had fought against the Soviets in the hills in Afghanistan (this was partly funded with American money of course) and thought that by bringing America into a similar war, he would again be victorious and that this would cause the collapse of America, much like the collapse of the USSR. So you could say that Bush did exactly what Bin Laden wanted him to do. Now the plan didn't quite work out as America hasn't collapsed.
None of this of course addresses the notion of whether the war was "just" or not. My understanding of the Talibans role in harbouring al Qaeda is that it was at times uneasy, and at other times mutually beneficial to both. I'm not sure that the Taliban knew of the 911 attack beforehand or not. Of course your average Afghan has nothing to do with any of this.
My personal feeling is that almost all war is advoidable and utterly pointless, and that the term "just" is pretty meaningless in terms of a war. If every time someone does something to you, your first response is to retaliate with force, then society would collapse. It also doesn't fit in to the "love thy neighbour" liberal Jesus philsophy. Not that right wing Americans would accept this, as they probably think that Jesus would have shot first and asked questions later.
The following is based on my understanding of the situation having read the excellent "The Looming Tower" which is an indepth history of the roots of al Qaeda up until the 911 attacks. I read it a few years ago, so some of this may just be plain wrong:
Al Qaeda was funded with a lot more Saudi money than Afgan money. Bin Laden was the son of a rather rich Saudi and had connections to the Saudi government. The Saudi Government wanted to control Bin Laden but ultimately couldn't and he was forced out of the country. However Bin Laden did get a lot of funding from rich Saudi individuals to fund al Qaeda.
The whole mantra behind 911 was to get the Americans to start a war in Afghanistan. Bin Laden had fought against the Soviets in the hills in Afghanistan (this was partly funded with American money of course) and thought that by bringing America into a similar war, he would again be victorious and that this would cause the collapse of America, much like the collapse of the USSR. So you could say that Bush did exactly what Bin Laden wanted him to do. Now the plan didn't quite work out as America hasn't collapsed.
None of this of course addresses the notion of whether the war was "just" or not. My understanding of the Talibans role in harbouring al Qaeda is that it was at times uneasy, and at other times mutually beneficial to both. I'm not sure that the Taliban knew of the 911 attack beforehand or not. Of course your average Afghan has nothing to do with any of this.
My personal feeling is that almost all war is advoidable and utterly pointless, and that the term "just" is pretty meaningless in terms of a war. If every time someone does something to you, your first response is to retaliate with force, then society would collapse. It also doesn't fit in to the "love thy neighbour" liberal Jesus philsophy. Not that right wing Americans would accept this, as they probably think that Jesus would have shot first and asked questions later.
