Yes, we did.Oh Yes, we really rang the bell on that one, didn't we?
-- Are the Taliban running Afghanistan and providing an entire nation of sanctuary, recruits, and legitimacy for Al Qaeda? Nope. Ring the bell--Ding, Ding.
-- Bin Laden--free to travel where he likes and openly meet with, communicate with, plot with his minions? Nope. Ding, Ding.
-- Ayman Al-Zawahiri--Still out and about stirring up trouble? Nope, he's probably bin Laden's roommate in their cave somewhere in the nether reaches of Afghanistan/Pakistan. Ding, Ding
-- Khalid Sheik Mohammed--planner of the 9/11 attacks, is considerably less bellicose and more humble in his new home in Cuba than in the old days. Ding, Ding. Likewise Abu Zubaydah.
-- Major successful al-Qaeda attacks on the US since 9-11-2001? Zero. Ding, Ding.
-- By product: Afhanistan is no longer under the rule of the Taliban--which is of more than academic interest to any woman in that country or anyone hoping their kids can live life slightly better than the world of 632 AD, when time and social progress stopped as far as the Taliban are concerned..
I'm not quite sure what needs to be done to constitute a victory. If bin Laden and his cronies are consigned to living in a mud hut eating rice for the rest of their days while their dreams of a brutal caliphate dissolves round them, that's probably not as good as them being captured or killed, but 'taint much different from a practical standpoint.