Well said, BBB. I agree.
However, the public would likely be/have been less satisfied by no overt show of force. Knowing that we went and bombed Afghanistan lets us feel that we're taking the fight to them. Iraq is a different issue of course...

 

I agree that going to Afghanistan to take down the Taliban was warranted. There was evidence of that governments support of terrorism - if you recall, the international community was largely supportive of our attack on Afghanistan as contrasted with Iraq. I also agree that Americans wanted revenge. It is a normal, but necessarily healthy, reaction to the attack we endured.
It is unfortunate that we have let Afghanistan fall into anarchy due, in large part, to stretching ourselves out too thinly in Iraq. An anarchistic state is what led to the Taliban's seizing of power in 1996. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9610/05/taleban/
I am fairly liberal minded when it comes to social issues and foreign policy, but I will be the first to say that Clinton, along with the rest of the UN, failed to act in 1996 when perhaps they should have. Hind sight is 20/20.