12 (can skip) history lesson

Quick history for those that don't know what is happening in the world of the fiction I am writing.

This is what happened in real life, but I'm guessing it also happened in the MCU world.

Ahmad Shah Massoud, commander of the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban coalition, is assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives. The killing of Massoud, a master of guerilla warfare known as the Lion of the Panjshir, deals a serious blow to the anti-Taliban resistance. Terrorism experts believe his assassination assured bin Laden protection by the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. Expert Peter Bergen later calls Massoud's assassination "the curtain raiser for the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC."

Al-Qaeda operatives hijack four commercial airliners, crashing them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth plane crashes in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Close to three thousand people die in the attacks. Although Afghanistan is the base for al-Qaeda, none of the nineteen hijackers are Afghan nationals. Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, led the group, and fifteen of the hijackers originated from Saudi Arabia. U.S. President George W. Bush vows to "win the war against terrorism," and later zeros in on al-Qaeda and bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bush eventually calls on the Taliban regime to "deliver to the United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land," or share in their fate

President Bush signs into law a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against those responsible for attacking the United States on September 11. This joint resolution will later be cited by the Bush administration as legal rationale for its decision to take sweeping measures to combat terrorism, including invading Afghanistan, eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a court order, and standing up the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

October 7th

The U.S. military, with British support, begins a bombing campaign against Taliban forces, officially launching Operation Enduring Freedom. Australia, Canada, France, and Germany pledge future support. The war's early phase [PDF] mainly involves U.S. air strikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces that are assisted by a partnership of about one thousand U.S. special forces, the Northern Alliance, and ethnic Pashtun anti-Taliban forces. The first wave of conventional ground forces arrives twelve days later. Most of the ground combat is between the Taliban and its Afghan opponents.

November

The Taliban regime unravels rapidly after its loss at Mazar-e-Sharif on November 9, 2001, to forces loyal to Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek military leader. Over the next week Taliban strongholds crumble after coalition and Northern Alliance offensives on Taloqan (November 11), Bamiyan (November 11), Herat (November 12), Kabul (November 13), and Jalalabad (November 14). On November 14, the UN Security Council passes Resolution 1378, calling for a "central role" for the United Nations in establishing a transitional administration and inviting member states to send peacekeeping forces to promote stability and aid delivery.

December

The end of the Taliban regime is generally tied to this date, when the Taliban surrender Kandahar [PDF] and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar flees the city, leaving it under tribal law administered by Pashtun leaders. Despite the official fall of the Taliban, however, al-Qaeda leaders continue to hide out in the mountains.

March

Operation Anaconda, the first major ground assault and the largest operation since Tora Bora, is launched against an estimated eight hundred al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Shah-i-Kot Valley south of the city of Gardez (Paktia Province). Nearly two thousand U.S. and one thousand Afghan troops battle the militants. Despite the operation's size, however, Anaconda does not represent a broadening of the war effort. Instead, Pentagon planners begin shifting military and intelligence resources away from Afghanistan in the direction of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which is increasingly mentioned as a chief U.S. threat in the "war on terror."

May 2003

During a briefing with reporters in Kabul, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declares an end to "major combat." The announcement coincides with President Bush's "mission accomplished" declaration of an end to fighting in Iraq. Rumsfeld says President Bush, U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Tommy Franks, and Afghan President Karzai "have concluded that we are at a point where we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction and activities." There are only eight thousand U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. It is predicted that the transition from combat to reconstruction will open the door for many aid organizations, particularly European groups, that had balked at sending troops, supplies, or other assistance.

A notorious Taliban military commander, Mullah Dadullah, is killed in a joint operation by Afghan, U.S., and NATO forces in the south of Afghanistan. Dadullah is believed to have been a leader of guerrilla forces in the war in Helmand Province, deploying suicide bombers and ordering the kidnapping of Westerners. He once told the BBC that hundreds of suicide bombers awaited his command to launch an offensive against foreign troops.

August 2003

NATO assumes control of international security forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan, expanding NATO/ISAF's role across the country. It is NATO's first operational commitment outside of Europe. Originally tasked with securing Kabul and its surrounding areas, NATO expands in September 2005, July 2006, and October 2006. The number of ISAF troops grows accordingly, from an initial five thousand to around sixty-five thousand troops from forty-two countries, including all twenty-eight NATO member states. In 2006, ISAF assumes command of the international military forces in eastern Afghanistan from the U.S.-led coalition, and also becomes more involved in intensive combat operations in southern Afghanistan.

October 2004

Signaling the persistent challenges facing the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, bin Laden releases a videotaped message three weeks after the country's presidential election and just days before the U.S. election, which President Bush wins. In remarks aired on the Arab television network Al Jazeera, bin Laden taunts the Bush administration and takes responsibility for the attacks on September 11, 2001.

July 2006

Violence increases across the country during the summer months, with intense fighting erupting in the south in July. The number of suicide attacks quintuples from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006, while remotely detonated bombings more than double, to 1,677.

2009

Newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama announces plans to send seventeen thousand more troops to the war zone. Obama reaffirms campaign statements that Afghanistan is the more important U.S. front against terrorist forces. He says the United States will stick to a timetable to draw down most combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. As of January 2009 the Pentagon has thirty-seven thousand troops in Afghanistan, roughly divided between U.S. and NATO commands. Reinforcements focus on countering a "resurgent" Taliban and stemming the flow of foreign fighters over the Afghan-Pakistan border in the south. Speaking on the troop increase, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates describes the original mission in Afghanistan as "too broad" and calls for establishing limited goals such as preventing and limiting terrorist safe havens.

U.S. Marines launch a major offensive in southern Afghanistan, representing a major test for the U.S. military's new counterinsurgency strategy. The offensive, involving four thousand Marines, is launched in response to a growing Taliban insurgency in the country's southern provinces, especially Helmand Province. The operation focuses on restoring government services, bolstering local police forces, and protecting civilians from Taliban incursion. By August 2009 U.S. forces are to number between sixty thousand and sixty-eight thousand.

Nine months after renewing the U.S. commitment to the Afghan war effort, President Obama announces a major escalation of the U.S. mission. In a nationally televised speech, the president commits an additional thirty thousand forces to the fight, on top of the sixty-eight thousand in place. These forces, Obama says, "will increase our ability to train competent Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans." For the first time in the eight-year war effort, a time frame is put on the U.S. military presence, as Obama sets July 2011 as the start of a troop drawdown. But the president does not detail how long a drawdown will take. Obama says U.S. national interests are linked to success in the Afghan war effort, and argues that this temporary surge will force Afghan political and military institutions to assume responsibility for their own affairs.

this is the point the MC will be leaving the military I already know how but I don't want to spoil it for you

But what I can tell you is the reason he leaves is because he awakens the rest of his abilities.

Shield finds evidence of this so they send Hawkeye who is currently in country to recruit the MC

Kicking off the MC's involvement in the MCU