I don’t think it’s quite the same situation because an attack on US soil preceded the war in Afghanistan. I think people in NYC felt the direct impact of war on 9/11.
The Taliban offered to give up Bin Ladin in exchange for us to stop bombing them before our invasion. We refused and invaded anyway. Worked out great, I’m told.
Literally just any news article from when it was happening.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5
Yeah fair point. I think much of America felt they had an obligation to respond directly to those directly involved with 9/11 (and yet, we never touched Saudi Arabia), so I can understand a limited operation to find OBL.
… Yet literally within 6 months of 9/11, George W Bush famously said, “I don’t know where he is, nor do I spend much time on it to be honest with ya[…] I truly am not that concerned about him.” Source
It took Obama to clean that up with precision, which is how it always should’ve been.
That being said I should note that Iraq had fundamentally nothing to do with 9/11 in any way. There were many lies spread by right-wing media and the Bush Administration trying to tie Iraq and Saddam to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, but none of those bore any truth.
I was politically conscious back then and from amn outside perspective the stupidity was very obvious.
Understandably 911 worked to get people into the mindset.
Russia is different: the people do not care about the reasons for this war, they are depolitisized and powerless and just hope to get through this somehow. They do not seem hungry for this war and are either conscripts or volunteers who get a fairly high salary.
