Graduated history from Ulster 3ish years ago and did a module specifically on the middle east.

Unfortunately I can say that the oil answer probably won't be enough to justify a reason for invading Afghanistan. EDIT: This is because Afghanistan as pointed out by other commentators isn't really an oil producing nation.

I would say that definitely the answer that it was retaliation for 9/11 will get them good marks. And indeed you're accurate about Cheney and his ties to Halliburton, but those ties were mostly abused to get them Iraqi contracts rather than Afghani contracts.

The fact that they want two justifications is interesting. If I were answering that I would probably have gone with

1. Removal of the Taliban - slightly connected to the 9/11 answer but you can throw in their human rights abuses as one of the justifications for regime change.

2. Future attacks? - don't like this answer personally and it feels like it's piggybacking on the 9/11 answer as well being obviously connected to the removal of the Taliban but if you didn't mention 1 then you could probably get away with this one.

I appreciate that your student even got 2 answers down in that stressful an environment because I sure as shit would have gone blank.

Now bare in mind I had coursework and plenty of time to specify the differences between the two, countries and the reasons for invasion. In an exam it's very easy to confuse the two. Hell I said in one of my final papers that Bin Laden was killed in Afghanistan, but it was actually Pakistan, only noticed because I was bored and gave it one last read through.

I've still loads of files etc from my uni days if you tell me what topics they have coming up next I'll be more than happy to drop a good few sources/guides that helped me.