It was in the MIC and security states' best interests, made popular by taking advantage of a tragedy and wielding propaganda. Honestly, GG to the people running the show at the time. It was a very clever play. Have to give credit where credit's due. We willingly surrendered so many rights.
We literally have all of history as an example of how bad Afghanistan invasions go for the invader. One prime example being the Soviet Union utterly failing just ~two decades prior.
Certainly not every intervention was a great idea, no, but that doesn't mean the right thing to do is never intervene. I'd argue the right thing to do is learn from that and not do that again.
So what interventions after WW2 do you support?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
The intervention in the Korean war?
The intervention in the Vietnam war?
Intervening in the Laotian Civil War?
The Permesta Rebellion?
Lebanon crisis? Bay of Pigs?
Invading Panama? Invading Grenada?
It provides the US military with invaluable combat experience and allows it to test/improve its strategies, equipment, and intelligence capabilities.
(Of course, fighting wars so one can remain combat-ready is the very definition of treating other people as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves, and so very much offends against the moral sensibility. But the question here is about self-interest.)
