It didn't matter, because neither the public nor policymakers were interested in principled or practical arguments. People wanted revenge, and the policymakers seized the opportunity to use U.S. military power.
The destructive capacity of the U.S. military meant quick "victories" that just as quickly proved illusory. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dragged on, it became clearer that the position staked out by early opponents was correct - the wars were not only illegal and immoral but also a failure on any pragmatic criteria.
The U.S. military has killed some of the people who were targeting the United States and destroyed some of their infrastructure and organization, but a decade later we are weaker and our sense of safety more fragile. The ability to dominate militarily proved to be inadequate and transitory, as predicted.
Ten years later, we are still right and it still doesn't matter.
There's a simple reason for this: Empires rarely learn over time, because power tends to dull people's capacity for critical self-reflection. While ascending to power, empires believe themselves to be invincible. While declining in power, they cling desperately to myths of remembered glory.
Today the United States is morally bankrupt and spiritually broken. The problem is not that we have strayed from our founding principles but that we are still operating on those principles - delusional notions about manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, the right to take more than our share of the world's resources by whatever means necessary.
After World War II, U.S. foreign policy sought to deepen and extend U.S. power around the world, especially in the energy-rich Middle East; always with an eye on derailing Third World societies' attempts to pursue a course of independent development outside the U.S. sphere and containing the challenges to U.S. dominance from other powerful states.
