Afghanistan is NOT Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was a tantrum by a group of megalomaniacs. The invasion of Afghanistan, however, was not by choice. It was necessary to protect the United States and the united nations. This war against the Taliban needs to be concluded even if it means extending the war into Pakistan.
A recent CNN poll showed that a majority of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan. We’re nearing the isolationist fervor we exhibited between the world wars, which ended in the disaster of the Nazi aggression and genocide in Europe. Afghanistan is not altogether different from Europe of the 1930s.
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Since we seem to have forgotten, let’s start with a brief history of modern Afghanistan.
Following centuries of possession by foreign powers, Afghanistan finally emerged with a progressive secular, but pro-soviet, government in the 1970s. The United States decided to covertly fund the Mujahidin to annoy the Soviets. In 1979, the Soviets invaded to prop up the Soviet-leaning Afghan government. The United States then funded and trained the Mujahidin to fight a proxy war against the Soviets. After nine years of occupation, the USSR pulled out. Unfortunately, the United States similarly pulled out, leaving behind a horrific civil war. The Taliban came to power in 1996.
The Taliban government created an extreme Wahhabi version of Shariah law where women were to be illiterate baby producing machines. Women who were educated, showed any part of their bodies (even their eyes) in public, or were even found outside of the home without their husbands were publicly executed.
The Taliban supported and were supported by Al Qaida and Osama Bin Laden. When Bill Clinton managed to kick Bin Laden out of the Sudan, the Taliban gladly gave him room for his training camps. The ‘9/11’ hijackers were all trained in Bin Laden’s Afghan camps.
Although Al Qaida has been in hiding since the beginning of the Afghan war, the Taliban is reemerging as a power in the Waziristan regions of Pakistan.
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The Taliban, one of the worst regimes in modern history, is regrouping; the weak (if not dysfunctional) Pakistani government has the bomb; opium production is at an all-time high; and civil war rages in the Khyber wastelands. The Asian people are as desperate as the people of 1930’s Europe and they have a leader: Bin Laden. Pakistani militants assassinated Benozir Bhutto, seiged Mumbai, and protect Al Qaida. Al Qaida and the Taliban intend to take down western civilization ….
So, how in the hell can you be against the war?
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5 comments:
The bumper crops have all happened since 2003. . . Are you high? I'm guessing you chose to see facts how you want fit.
Yeah sending more troops to Afghanistan is going to end the chaos we created in the first place......hahahaha you must be high on something yourself.
I can't even imagine what your point is.
If we fail to clean it up, and pull out like the Russians; no doubt the communist Chinese will gladly send in a few million troops, and maybe occupy Pakistan as well.
Afghanistan did not attack the US. A terrorist group that had training facilities in Afghanistan did.
To claim otherwise is to claim that when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal bldg in OKC, that Oklahoma had attacked the US.
Most of the 9/11 bombers were from Saudi Arabia as was Bin Laden. Why are we not at war with them?
The fact is that Al Qaeda is a stateless criminal enterprise and should be prosecuted as such. What we are doing now, invading nations and killing innocent civilians along with criminals is a great recruiting tool for Bin Laden.
If someone blew up your family because they wanted to kill a criminal who was visiting next door, where would your sympathies lie? Given a chance to strike back at the perpetrators what would you do? What would you encourage your neighbors to do?
I have to admit to having mixed feelings about the war in Afghanistan. It felt like the right thing to do after 9/11 as it wass likely that the ring leader was in hiding there. We also got the added benefit of taking out a really bad group of people in the Taliban.
However, over 7 years on and the results are mixed at best. The Taliban may no longer be in power, but it's clear that their power is back on the increase and even more clear that the real problem lies in Pakistan, as you mentioned, a nuclear power. Looking back even further in history, wars in Afghanistan rarely seem to turn out in favor of the aggressors. Could it have been the decision to attack Afghanistan, not Iraq, that has led to (leading to?) the downfall of the US as the world's superpower?
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