As Chris notes, Yoshie leaves out the foreign support for the US invasion of Afghanistan in her story, it's true. But the US motives do include the fact that it was an easy target and strategically important (oil, etc.) So her story is incomplete, not totally wrong. The fact that Afghanistan was a popular target to invade is one reason that makes it a "loss leader." It helps set a precedent for the US being the world's policeman (along with prosecutor, judge, and jury), undermining the "Vietnam Syndrome."
(Afghanistan looks more and more like it wasn't really an easy target, once issues of occupation start being faced. As the USSR discovered.)
Moreover, she leaves out how evil the Talibs were (and are). The (evil) US power elite's motives led them to leave this out before 911 too, because they were willing to deal with the Talibs: the war on drugs, access to pipeline areas, etc. (I don't know what the US relationship to the Talibs was during the war against the USSR.)
Even though the invasion of Afghanistan can be defended by reasonable people who I disagree with, that doesn't mean that the invasion wasn't "imperialist." Imperialism is a world social system with the US as the current hegemonic power. The US role meant that it was the leader of the invasion -- and that it was US goals which were most served by that invasion and the resulting occupation. The US hasn't been a very good steward of its conquered territories. After it helped the Northern Alliance _et al_ kick the USSR out of Afghanistan, it let the country go to seed (and worse), allowing the Talibs to fill in the power vacuum. It seems to be doing that again.
BTW, just as a lot of Eurasia supported the US invasion, a lot of Afghans supported the Taliban because they stopped the civil war between the various war-lords.
comments welcome.
JD