Let us say the USA had stayed out of Afghanistan. Lets say the Taliban had prevailed, and killed as many as the USA. The USA would bear no responsibility for the carnage.
Let me get this straight.
What you are suggesting is that after 9/11, the US should just let Al Qaeda and Bin Laden be in Afghanistan, under the protection of the Taliban, just swallow the 3,000 Americans lost at US soil, brace for the terrorist attacks all over the world that are sure to follow, and do nothing ?
Are you kidding ?
No, sir. No can do.
Al Qaeda had to be destroyed, and the Taliban that harbored them had to go.
And we did that, although technically speaking the US never invaded Afghanistan. The late Massoud's Northern Alliance (mujahideen) , who had been fighting the Taliban for a decade, did the real ground work.
And they did it with an absolute minimum number of civilian casualties. Even the report you linked to shows that the vast majority of civilian casualties after 2001 was caused by the remainder of the Taliban (by suicide bombers on market places, into hospitals and mosques and stuff like that).
In fact, I still have not seen evidence of even ONE example of where civilians died in Afghanistan due to US operations there. You have one ?
Compare that to the carnage of million+ civilian deaths the Soviets caused during their nine year war against the people of Afghanistan.
And as a result of the brave work by the mujahideen of the Northern Alliance and Allied forces resolve in Afghanistan in 2001/2002, the world is a safer place.
And the women in Afghanistan no longer have to wear a burka. Terry will like that
.