Part of the problem is 20th century thinking. Heretofore, we fought other nations..nice, neat borders where we just plant our boot..occupy, and the war is over. We did that with both Germany and Japan. The Korean conflict was rather clear cut; confined to one peninsula, and raging around the 38th parallel
Now we face an evil ideaology, one bent on our destruction. On 9/11/01 they attacked us in a most cowardly, vicious and evil way. This evil ideology is a transnational movement, not confined to any national borders. While the bulk of the murderers of 9/11 were Saudi nationals, they were not alone. Some were from Yemen and other "old time" geographical areas. Suicide bombers the world over have come from Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Somalia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Chechniya, Indonesia, the Philipines, Red China and even Canada!
Then too, let's not overlook the sizeable number who, like the Ft Hood mass murderer....came from right here in the US!
So those whose thinking is confined to the old, 20th century, "geographical territory" example, might think that we must fight all these countries..including Canada and ourselves. ..And that simply because of where the terrorists come from!
That territorial conquest line of thought is obviously faulty in the 21st century...
So who is our enemy? Who indeed? The mad terrorist murderers come from many countries and are fat, thin, short, tall, male, female fair, dark, blond or brunette...
..But there is one common denominator, one characteristic, which THEY ALL SHARE..an EVIL ideaology
Yes; we could have ignored the terrorists, and like Muhammad Ali, have gone along playing "rope-a-dope with every punch they threw at us...or we could fight back. ..But, seeing Ali now makes one wonder if rope-a-dope was a good idea.
Besides, Clinton tried virtually ignoring the first bombing attempt against the WTC..treating it as a simple , legal question concerning a mad sheikh. Then we soon paid the price with a couple embassies , the USS Cole and the complete destruction of the WTC
Keep in mind, the old "chess board" territorial war is not at all what is going on here, so to ask .."what are we doing in XX country?" is a non-starter..we are going after the terrorists wherever we can find them in sufficient numbers to liquidate.
Of course, the ideal we are working toward is eventually having the local populace in a position to be able to control the radical, evil elements within their own cultures. For thjose who ask; this is a mark of success in the field..when as in Iraq, we can turn over security to a duly elected government that doesn't harbor such wildly radical and evil ideals.