The July 30 ruling by a federal judge that the U.S. may continue holding as a prisoner of war an inmate of Guantanamo who was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, was a reminder that America is still at war in that country. The prisoner claimed that since the U.S. formally ended its combat role in Afghanistan in 2014, he had a right to be released. But according to Judge Royce C. Lambeth, the war in Afghanistan is not yet over. He wrote in his decision, "The government may not always say what it means or means what it says." One of the defendant's lawyers said the judge's ruling endorsed "the idea of a limitless forever war under which the government can continue fighting." But fighting for what? The murderous attack on the World Trade Towers in September 2001 was masterminded, financed, and carried out by a group of Saudis. Yet without attempting to understand the motivation behind the suicidal attack, or to identify the policies that provoked it, George W. Bush declared a "war on terror" and ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.