Powerful. How did we get here?

Avoidance of bad news. After 9/11 the US went to Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden. But he escaped.

Now, the choice was between 1: 'OK, he escaped lets go back until we get another chance' or 2: 'lets stay here and invent another mission - nation building'

With option 1 there would have been news footage of the troops returning empty handed and reporters asking the politicians 'what happened, why didn't you get him?'

Since the politicians couldn't face this they decided on option 2, it sounded great, politicians always go for the immediate good news.

Yes, they believe it themselves.