Afghans, not the U.S., deposed the Taliban

In the July 11 editorial, “Still a land of danger,” you write: “In the months after 9/11, U.S. troops quickly ousted Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.” But U.S. troops did no such thing. Before the fall of Kabul to the Afghan Northern Alliance in November 2001, there were no U.S. regular combat formations in Afghanistan. Substantial foreign ground combat forces only entered the country after the Taliban had been deposed by Afghan forces. Describing what the U.S. did in Afghanistan as ousting the Taliban tends to equate those actions in people’s minds with the invasion of Iraq where Saddam Hussein was indeed ousted. That equation wrongly calls into question the legitimacy of American action in Afghanistan.

Mark Collins

Ottawa