Preventing the Next 9/11

Traveling in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested the U.S. learn from history:

After the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan in the late 1980s, Gates said, the United States and the international community “basically turned our backs” on Afghanistan. Four years later, in 1993, al-Qaida launched made its first attack on the World Trade Center in New York. A car bomb failed to bring the building down, but it killed six people. Undeterred, and operating with impunity in Afghanistan, al-Qaida hatched the plan that killed thousands on Sept. 11, 2001.

As I understand it, al Qaeda was not operating out of Afghanistan in 1993 but Sudan. But more important, what was the "not turning our back" option in the 1980s when the Soviets retreated?

Turning back the clock, what exactly should the U.S. have done differently? And how could those policies have deterred or prevented bin Laden from waging a holy war against the West?

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Photo Credit: AP Photo