February 23, 2004
Why Didn't the U.S. Invade Afghanistan
Attention has been focused on the impact of Neo Conservatism at the strategic level, in reference to the Administration’s doctrine of preemption. Arguably however, Neo Conservatism has had a far greater effect at the tactical level, on how the Administration has chosen to fight the war against terrorism and specifically the campaign in Afghanistan after 9/11. This Administration decided not to launch a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan to kill or capture bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda, instead choosing to use Afghanistan as a test of Neo Conservative military theories. As a result bin Laden and much of Al Qaeda were able to get away. This was a serious blow to the war on terrorism, and our country is less safe as a result.
When President Bush came into office he brought with him a number of civilian ideologues who were proponents of a school of thought referred to as “Neo Conservatism”. The Neo Conservatives, or Neo Cons, believed that our military policy was out of date, that with the United States’ overwhelming technological and air superiority there was a new way to fight wars. Instead of relying on feet on the ground, on the U.S. Army, these ideologues believed we could use strategic air power to bring an enemy to its knees. Under this theory, we could avoid the bad publicity of body bags being brought home, and also not incur the hundreds of billions it takes to feed and arm a large army. If we could make war lower priced and safer, then in theory we could go to war more often – war could be a much more important part of the United States’ global policy. And the Neo Cons believe there is a list of countries with which the United States should go to war.
Not surprisingly, the Neo Cons met with resistance within the traditional U.S. Military, and particularly within the Army. The experiences of a failed gradual war in Viet Nam and then the overwhelming success of the first Gulf War had coalesced into a policy named after then-General Colin Powell. The Powell Doctrine held that the United States should only contemplate deploying its military in cases of critical national interest with clearly defined goals and an end strategy. If the United States did choose to use force, then the Powell Doctrine dictated that we should use massive, overwhelming force to insure we meet our goals and minimize U.S. casualties. The U.S. Military believed that it still knew how to fight wars, and that it was still typically best done with U.S. soldiers.
And then 9/11 happened. Suddenly defense policy was no longer a bureaucratic debate between the Neo Cons and the traditional Military. Afghanistan presented our U.S. Military with its most important task in decades. Concentrated in one country were an estimated 3,000 hard-core al Qaeda terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, 3,000 people who had attacked our country and threatened to do so again. There was no other goal for our Military – the war on terror demanded that we get those 3,000 people. And Afghanistan presented a golden opportunity to do so – all 3,000 were in one place, in one country.
The Secretary of Defense was faced with a decision on how to proceed. Should the U.S. revert to the traditional way of fighting a war? We have the strongest military in the world – should we use it to its fullest ability? Should we flood Afghanistan with U.S. Army troops, to make sure that we as a nation had made every possible effort to kill or capture these 3,000 terrorists? Or should the Administration use Afghanistan as a petri dish to prove Neo Conservative theories, as an experiment to show once and for all what could be accomplished with minimal U.S. troops on the ground?
At this critical juncture in our history, the Secretary of Defense chose to ignore the advice of the people who actually fight wars for us, the U.S. Military, and instead chose to test an abstract intellectual concept. There was to be no massive army presence in Afghanistan – the U.S. Army would, for the most part, sit on the sidelines. Instead of invading with U.S. troops we chose to rely on surrogate troops, on the Afghani fighters of the Northern Alliance supported by our technology and air-power. During the war we deployed only 5,000 U.S. soldiers, toward the very end of the campaign. U.S. troops were far outnumbered by the Taliban, and barely even matched the troop level of Al Qaeda itself. Given a choice between deploying the U.S. Army and relying on the Northern Alliance, the Secretary of Defense chose to place the fate of our Nation in the hands of the Afghani fighters who had already been largely defeated by the Taliban.
The Afghanistan war plan was pure, naked intellectual arrogance on the part of the Neo Cons. Arrogance at this level used to be the hallmark of the Liberal intellectuals – they were sure that they and they alone knew what was best for us, and they would design our government institutions accordingly. We are still paying for the costs of their arrogance. This will be the case with these ideologues as well – their arrogance will haunt our nation for years. Under the Powell Doctrine, we would have deployed massive overwhelming force. We would have trusted that our U.S. Army was the best instrument for the task. We would have taken every precaution, we would have done everything possible that we could have done. Instead, the Secretary of Defense chose to try something that has never been tried before, and it failed. bin Laden and most of those 3,000 are still at large, and the war on terror and the security of our Nation have been dealt significant setbacks. This is the tragedy of Afghanistan – we missed a golden opportunity to strike what might have been a knockout blow to Al Qaeda.
Think of how different the U.S. would be right now if we had killed or captured bin Laden and destroyed al Qaeda. Would we have felt the need to invade Iraq? Would we feel as vulnerable as we do now? This is what the Administration, and particularly the Secretary of Defense, must answer for – a critical failure in the war against terrorism and the damage done to our national security.
Posted by at February 23, 2004 03:20 PMWhy Didn’t the U.S. Invade Afghanistan?
Short answer: 1) No oil, 2) not as strategicly located as Iraq for American bases to be maintained for, in Cheney’s words, decades to come. The thinking was, the Afghani’s would not tolerate US occupation after the Taliban was removed, any more than they tolerated occupation by Russians. Iraqi’s however we were told, would welcome us with open arms in return for deposing Hussein.
“Think of how different the U.S. would be right now if we had killed or captured bin Laden and destroyed al Qaeda. Would we have felt the need to invade Iraq? Would we feel as vulnerable as we do now?”
Yes. and Yes.
The problem isn’t just or even mainly Al Qaeda. The problem is the dysfunctional parts of Middle Eastern culture which fosters groups like Al Qaeda. Saddam was the perfect example, in the minds of such people, of US fecklessness and inability to follow through.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at February 23, 2004 05:58 PMSebastian, shall we indict the U.S. and call for overthrow of our own government due to our culture producing 800,000 missing and kidnapped persons, mostly women and children, each year in America? How about growing our terrorists like McVay and Nichols and the Columbine shooters? Shall we invite overthrow of the U.S. because our culture breeds the largest if not the seediest black market in the world?
Damn, I am so tired of American’s holier than thou attitude which justifies its own actions in bombing and destroying the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent people in the name of rectifying the cultural wrongs of other societies. Terrorism is horrible, but, we have blood on our hands as well. We are guilty of terrorism in foreign lands, we are guilty of debase and immoral culture protected by the laws of our land which place a higher value on freedom than conformity.
We have a right to defend our nation. WE DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO AGGRESSIVELY INVADE OTHER NATIONS on the grounds that we are more moral, or superior as a culture to other cultures. That kind of thinking will turn us into the very monsters we seek to destroy.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 23, 2004 06:31 PM“Damn, I am so tired of American’s holier than thou attitude which justifies its own actions in bombing and destroying the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent people in the name of rectifying the cultural wrongs of other societies.”
If the societies were not regularly producing groups like Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, etc. I would agree with you. Unfortunately they do produce such groups, and those groups are orders of magnitude more powerful than parallel groups in the US. If they weren’t trying to kill us, I would be happy to leave them alone.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at February 23, 2004 06:38 PMBlake,
I think you’re posting in the wrong section. :)
To answer your question. We did invade Afghanistan. You may have heard of Operation Enduring Freedom? Although I was partial to Operation Infinite Justice myself.
You might also recall that the Taliban fell rather quickly.
Nothing like snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, heh?
In any other universe this military would be hailed as the end all be all damn straight don’t mess with the best or you’ll die like all the rest… But for some strange reason victory is defeat and what coulda been is more important than what actually is.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 23, 2004 08:57 PMInvading Afghanistan was the right thing to do. President Bush saw the enemy and took the fight to them. Through to this point, no problem. But, we did not commit all of our forces, intelligence, and resources to insuring the Taliban would not return, nor did we capture the man responsible for funding the terrorism against the U.S.
Here is where I and most centrists and left of centrists part company with Bush. We didn’t finish one job and started another one that can’t be finished for years and which posed no imminent threat to the U.S. WMD be damned, he had no intercontinental missiles to deliver any weapons upon our shores. We should have finished the job in Afghanistan while pursuing a much wider coalition carrying substantially more of the load before invading Iraq.
The Pres. was wrong, bad call, won’t admit it, and that makes him a dangerous person to have in the Whitehouse. A President who cannot admit mistakes and learn from them has no right whatsoever to ask the people to trust him.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 23, 2004 09:49 PMI think if we had brought down the Taliban and Al Quaeda ourselves, we would have made a much more profound impression than our non-vindicated invasion of Iraq. I mean, simply put, This is what happens when you screw with us! Instead, we fight a war by proxy. We pay billions of dollars a year to keep up and maintain a standing Army, and somebody attacks us, someone with large, ground based fighting force, and a country that needed some liberation. What do we do? We hire out the ground operations to their rivals and prop them up with our air power.
Then how do we deal with this trapped and contained dictator who’d couldn’t project power in his own neighborhood, much less ours? We do almost the opposite. And this time, for a much flimsier motivation.
I mean, it seems like the strategy of the Bush Administration is to do exactly the opposite of what would be the obviously right thing.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 23, 2004 10:42 PMRemer, you may be interested to know who Karzai worked for before becoming president of Afghanistan: UNOCAL.
Now, I’m not one to jump to conclusions… so I’ll let someone else figure this one out for me, because I’m actually pretty dense, and I don’t know what these two things have in common: Afghanistan plans gas pipeline.
I’m sorry, is the alleged pipeline an argument for or against the notion that the US should have invaded Afghanistan with more force? It isn’t obvious to me which side of the argument the invasion/pipeline conspiracy theory helps.
Posted by: Sebastian holsclaw at February 24, 2004 12:09 PM…we did not commit all of our forces, intelligence, and resources to insuring the Taliban would not return, nor did we capture the man responsible for funding the terrorism against the U.S.
I find it hard to believe that if the Bush administration had done precisely what you said that you would be praising him at this moment. As I recall the anti-war protests began as soon as Bush said we would be sending troops into Afghanistan.
More than 20,000 protesters today joined Britain’s biggest protest yet against military action in Afghanistan by the US and its allies. The turnout was twice as big as that expected by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament organisers and four times that predicted by police.…”CND has said all along that killing innocent civilians is not the way to eradicate terrorism - we have to do it through the United Nations and international law.”
Guardian.uk
Sounds like a unilateral action to me.
If we hadn’t have invaded Iraq, the left would be talking about how we didn’t have a real coalition in Afghanistan, about how war only perpetuated the cycle of violence, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
As it was, we showed remarkable restraint. We fielded the forces adequete for accomplishing the mission. Osama knew we were coming. He had plenty of time to go to ground. Hell, we couldn’t get him during the Clinton adminsitration when he was offered! It took 9 months to find Saddam with 200,000 troops. And we had a pretty good idea he was within the few hundred square miles of the sunni triangle.
Part of the reasoning in using the Northern Alliance is that Afghani’s must have a hand in ruling once we are done. It is so much better to have a security force who have been fighting the Taliban. It was their fight! Our force made victory inevitable, yet they were also a major part of the victory. How many troops do you think it should take to defeat the Taliban?
You are minimizing the accomplishments of our military and maximizing the criticism of the President. -and leaving out all kinds of details which you are either unaware of or do not care to be aware of.
Here on the one hand you criticise the Bush administration for not using enough force in a country that has an opposition army which has matched the Taliban almost equally for years despite the millions of arms and funding from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, so that we can say to the world, “this is what happens when you screw with us!” and on the other hand Bush is a war monger who has bungled the invasion of Iraq with his agressiveness.
And yet despite his ‘totally botching’ the war plans in both instances our victory was total in every real military sense.
Politically however, that’s another story. Where the fault lies in this regard is up for debate.
We invaded Iraq…
…which posed no imminent threat to the U.S. WMD be damned, he had no intercontinental missiles to deliver any weapons upon our shores.
Did Afghanistan pose an imminent threat to the US? Did they have WMD’s or intercontinental missiles? Is it the criteria of invasion that a country must be able to strike our shores before it is ok to try and take them out?
Bush never, ever, ever said we are invading Iraq because it was an imminent threat. This is Ted Kennedy’s requirement for invasion!
Even after 9/11 Afghanistan posed no real military threat. Their ‘large ground based fighting force’ was just barely capable of fighting the Northern Alliance to a stand still. They had no mechanized forces. The Taliban Army was entirely composed of light irregular forces. Throw in a few Soviet artillery museum peices and a handful of aging tanks and you’ve got yourself a target of no real significance. The Taliban is finished.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 24, 2004 01:43 PMIt appears that the right has never stuck to the “Bush Doctrine”.
If we wanted to ACTUALLY fight terrorism we would have invaded Iran, before Afghanistan or Iraq. It is the philosophical and economic home of terror. The others would have fallen like dominos.
Osama may have been the man specifically behind September 11th, but unless the threat of fundamental Islam is dealt with in the only manner it understands, violently, there will only be another “Osama” to take his place.
On topic, the failure to find Bin Laden will be a major thorn in the President’s side come November, as it should.
For me, it isn’t so much a matter of *invading* Afghanistan as it is being willing to pursue him into the surrounding nations, ie Pakistan.
Posted by: Number 1 Player at February 24, 2004 03:20 PMWait, wait, wait…
There are plans for a massive oil pipeline to go right through Afghanistan - comment #1 does not hold water.
Posted by: Michael at February 24, 2004 04:20 PMPeople in Arab culture respect those who step in on their own behalf and risk their own hide instead of sending somebody else to do the job. Sending the Northern Alliance in was a bad idea, especially considering the history of failures that lead to the Taliban, and considering the low opinion people hold of Colonial style wars by proxy.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 24, 2004 07:55 PMSebastian, how can one condemn the whole of Islamic countries based on the fact that those societies produce an extremely small number of terrorists? Our own society produces far more mass murders and rapists than Islamic nations produce terrorists. Does that require we dismantle our society and start over? It seems to me some perspective is needed to keep us from becoming the evil ones by doing whole societies harm in the name of pursuing a small number of deviates.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 24, 2004 09:51 PMStephen,
People in Arab culture respect those who step in on their own behalf and risk their own hide instead of sending somebody else to do the job.
Like in Iraq?
Sending the Northern Alliance in was a bad idea, especially considering the history of failures that lead to the Taliban, and considering the low opinion people hold of Colonial style wars by proxy.Colonial style wars? I may need you to further define this for me. This phrase is so overused in some quarters that it has lost any real meaning. i.e. any war in which the US is involved is an ipso facto a colonial war. Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 24, 2004 11:22 PM
Our own society produces far more mass murders and rapists than Islamic nations produce terrorists. Does that require we dismantle our society and start over? It seems to me some perspective is needed to keep us from becoming the evil ones by doing whole societies harm in the name of pursuing a small number of deviates.
Look at it from the perspective of a gay couple attempting to get a marriage licence in any mid-east country of your choice.
From their perspective I believe the penalty is death, not debate.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 25, 2004 01:26 AMYes, and look at the U.S. from the perspective of a working family without health insurance who reads that Candada, Great Britian and number of other modern societies insure all citizens have coverage. Does that justify calling this nation inhumane? Of course not. It only makes a statement about our priorities. Islamic countries have different priorities we don’t agree with, that in no way gives us reason or legitimacy in attempting to remake their culture anymore than the terrorists have a right to try to destroy ours.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 25, 2004 01:54 AMUnless by ‘remaking’ we mean changing their minds about their right to destroy our civilization?
Kerry phrased it pretty well today when he said people in America were being ‘terrorized’ by lack of health coverage. Yeah, good analogy.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 26, 2004 02:16 AMOur culture is not perfect, Eric, and imposing it directly on them means there will be weaknesses in our way of life they won’t be prepared to deal with. If we want them to change, we have to let them change in a way that allows them to preserve their dignity and self-respect. So far, we have seen the effects of a forced modernization, and it’s not pretty.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 26, 2004 08:47 AMI really don’t think it is a matter of forcing our culture upon them. It is more a matter of defeating a culture that is increasingly totalitarian in nature. The fact that there is a religious component involved makes little difference.
One might use the same argument you are employing to say that the regime of Saddam Hussein was the valid culture of Iraq. We cannot become so paralyzed by cultural relativism that we cannot act in our own self interest.
It’s not about defeating a religion either. I know and love several persons of Muslim religious affiliation. The situation is more akin to Christianity being represented by and co-opted by the KKK in the south.
I would not argue that our culture is perfect. I would argue that there is no ‘prime directive’ at work here which precludes us from meddling in other cultures. Even within the fantasy world of Star Trek the prime directive only applied when no contact had been made with other cultures and those cultures were not sufficiently developed.
It might even be argued that the legitimate muslim culture has already been hijacked by a radically different culture. Certainly the Taliban does not represent muslim culture. But shall we wait until all of the middle east is under such a regime or regimes? They are no more a valid culture than the Nazi’s were the valid German culture.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 26, 2004 12:42 PM“This Administration decided not to launch a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan to kill or capture bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda, instead choosing to use Afghanistan as a test of Neo Conservative military theories.”
What a bunch of crap. (Comment deleted by WatchBlog Manager - Critique the Message, not the Messenger). We invaded Afghanistan just before winter, and therefore flooding the country with our troops was an awful idea. Sending a bunch of troops with an extended supply line into a harsh winter is A VERY BAD IDEA… just ask Hitler or Napoleon.
Posted by: Tom at February 27, 2004 12:17 AMSebastian,
America needs to question why on earth countries like palestine,afghanistan, etc etc are producing the terrorists in the first place. Poor countries like this , should be focussing their attention on issues such as security, health, good governance and the likes. Instead they are using whatever means they have to galvanise resources ( which are desperately required elsewhere) towards terrorism. The simple reason for this is, that people in these countries feel such a deep sense of injustice and desperation that they immediately target an enemy and direct their rage toward it.
In the case of Afghanistan, let me remind you, that it was the US, and Russia to a certain extent that created, funded and completely supported the Taliban till it became too much of a liability.The Taliban were hoodlums of the worst variety, but they were only a product of America’s foreign policy.
Similarly the case in Palestine, these terrorists do not spring from the woodwork, intent on mischief.They are created.
Consider the case in Pakistan, the terrorists there are also fighting desperately for something they believe in, but they are fighting India, because they see India as the cause for their woes, and not without some reason. India is not to blame at all, but it is connected to the Kashmir issue.
Poor countries (not so much pakistan, as afghanistan) can only resort to violence, because they have no other means, and yes it is completely and totally wrong and deplorable, but the problem can’t be solved by launching wars left,right and center across the world, you have to get to the root of the problem.
You want to know why countries like this are producing terrorists?
Because America forced them to, and America maybe the only country now that can stop them.
…that it was the US, and Russia to a certain extent that created, funded and completely supported the Taliban till it became too much of a liability.The Taliban were hoodlums of the worst variety, but they were only a product of America’s foreign policy.…You want to know why countries like this are producing terrorists?
Because America forced them to…
I’m sorry but the Taliban was never funded or supported by the US. The US funded and armed Afghani citizens to fight against the Soviets who had invaded their country.
Afghanistan is divided into tribal groups who fought each other as readily as they fought the Soviets. During the Afghan war many Arab volunteers came there to fight for the cause of their religion. Osama was one of these. The Taliban did not exist during this time and was largely a project of radical elements of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agency and the Arab volunteers who came to Afghanistan and hooked up with one tribal group.
If we are complicit it is for lack of involvement. After the Soviets withdrew we did also. But nothing we did could have necessarily changed the religious direction of radical muslims in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 27, 2004 12:36 PMOk fine, maybe I’m wrong about the US funding the Taliban itself.
I’ll admit that in all honesty, at that point I was just raving mad and ranting a little.I can’t say that I don’t believe that America had something to do with them, especially when it came to scoring one over the Soviets.
I was merely responding to :
“If the societies were not regularly producing groups like Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, etc. I would agree with you. Unfortunately they do produce such groups, and those groups are orders of magnitude more powerful than parallel groups in the US. If they weren’t trying to kill us, I would be happy to leave them alone. “
I’m making the point that these societies don’t just produce these groups as part of an evil pact with Satan or who ever to go an wreck the world. Terrorism as I’ve already mentioned springs out of a deep sense of injustice and unhappiness. If all they wanted to do was just attack any old arbitrary enemy, why could’nt they focus their energy on someone closer to home, like Russia, or even India ( which has been a victim, but never to the magnitude of Sept 11)
They feel that America is an enemy, and while I do strongly believe that “Guhvenor Ahnold” is a bit dodgy, these are actually the repercussions of America’s long practiced “Big Stick” policy, ie the policy of interference in matters that seemingly don’t concern them at all.
Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are a by product of America’s interference in the middle east. Also Pakistan the ‘creator’ of the taliban recieved most of its own military and financial support from America, mainly because India was being supported by Russia.
Further in the case of Saddam Hussein, anybody who thinks that he wasnt solely a US creation need only go back and read the papers about 10-15 years ago. I mean there are pictures of him shaking hands with Rumsfeld. Hello??!?!
I never thought there were any WMD’s,and the only way i figure that the government was so damn sure that he had them was because they gave them to him. They certainly didnt show us much evidence did they, except Britain’s dossier, and we know what happened there.
What about agent orange during Vietnam? Wasnt that a bio chemical weapon? Doesnt America have nuclear stockpiles? And isn’t it the only country in the history of the world to have ever used them?
Yes, Japan attacked first, but they attack a naval base and you retaliate with a nuclear bomb??!Sounds like very responsible usage to me.
I know what terrorism is like, I’ve experienced it, but bombing other countries and breaking and re making societies isnt the answer at all, and will never be.
The world is far more dangerous than it was a few years ago, there was just one Osama in the beginning, but now I guarentee there are thousands.
The point I was trying to make was that we as a country did not invade Afghanistan because of the Taliban. We invaded because that’s where al Qaeda was, and particularly bin Laden. The Taliban did not kill 3,000 American – bin Laden and al Qaeda did. What have we gained out of deposing the Taliban? Very little. What did we lose by NOT using all of our resources to try to destroy al Qaeda and kill bin Laden? A lot. Like it or not, Afghanistan was a defeat for the U.S. in the war against terrorism. The terrorists proved that they could attack our country and the primary negative outcome for the terrorist was that we made them move and disperse.
Is anybody suggesting that destroying al Qaeda and killing or capturing bin Laden wasn’t the primary goal of the invasion?
Blake
…we as a country did not invade Afghanistan because of the Taliban. We invaded because that’s where al Qaeda was, and particularly bin Laden. The Taliban did not kill 3,000 American – bin Laden and al Qaeda did. What have we gained out of deposing the Taliban? Very little. What did we lose by NOT using all of our resources to try to destroy al Qaeda and kill bin Laden? A lot. Like it or not, Afghanistan was a defeat for the U.S. in the war against terrorism. The terrorists proved that they could attack our country and the primary negative outcome for the terrorist was that we made them move and disperse.
This is a good point to bring up because I think it highlights the difference between democrats and republicans in the war on terror.
To be able to disregard the clear link between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and claim that we gained little by deposing the Taliban is part of the democrats true weakness in foreign policy. The war on terror is not a domestic police investigation. Where we wait until we have evidence of a crime before arresting specific individuals connected to a crime. It is a socio-political war between radical Islam and the west. The United States is the main target by virtue of it being the leader and remaining superpower. (Although I do not discount meddling to being a cause of some animosity.)
If democrats think that Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda alone are the enemy here they are misled.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 29, 2004 08:24 PMThis brings us right back to the thing I’ve been saying again and again, Al Qaeda is not the only enemy by any means, infact the answer is much deeper, and at the risk of this sounding like an ad for one-earth.org, the real enemy is hatred and poverty and all the things that these terrorist use to drum up passions, and garner support.
I don’t honestly believe that war can provide a lasting solution for anything.Infact what have we actually gained from the war on terror? Al Qaeda isn’t gone, the Taliban isn’t really gone either, they’ll resurface sooner or later, and if not them, then it’ll be someone else.
I don’t actually believe it’s really an us versus them situation here, i think it’s just sort of happened this way, and since islam is the religion of a vast majority, its the easiest , quickest method to cut accross differences and unite against “the enemy”.
If people in these societies were just happy, if poverty, health care and education were addressed properly, they wouldn’t be bothered with america much,save for McDonalds maybe.
Ofcourse when something like Sept 11 happens, what do you do? Do you just sit back and take it? Not possible. Do you wage war? Never a good idea.
I have no idea, how the world even begins to address issues like poverty and hunger, which are the real problems.
So what do you do? I have no clue, somebody tell me, cause seems like the world just gets more depressing each day.
“To be able to disregard the clear link between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and claim that we gained little by deposing the Taliban is part of the democrats true weakness in foreign policy.”
Just out of curiosity, what do you view as the gain from deposing the Taliban? Is that gain greater to the gain our country would have realized if we had destroyed al Qaeda?
Blake
Posted by: Blake Ashby at March 1, 2004 11:14 PMIn all honesty you could not have gone after Al Qaeda without taking out the Taliban. It’s like saying we need to destroy the SS without defeating the Third Riech.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at March 2, 2004 02:32 AM“To be able to disregard the clear link between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and claim that we gained little by deposing the Taliban is part of the democrats true weakness in foreign policy.”
What exactly did we gain again?
Posted by: Suhasini at March 2, 2004 05:33 AMI guess in your mind we gained nothing.
I am not sure how you would plan on destroying Al Qaeda without invading Afghanistan.
Besides, we are hunting down these people everyday. I think you underestimate the difficulty of the task.
Posted by: Eric Simonson at March 2, 2004 09:38 PMWell I guess the question I’m really asking is not so much have we gained anything at all, but more of , does the gain outweigh the damage.
I think to an extent, a message of some sort has been sent to the terrorist, but I really feel that if anything they’re more determined now than ever to wreak havoc.
Forget the other downsides to war, like death, cost, destruction, but has this war that we’re investing in really done what it was supposed to do, ie get rid of terrorism?Do you think so?
It’s a sincere question, what do you feel, Eric?Anybody?
I’ll answer Suhasini. I believe that we are making real changes in the Middle East through our policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe your point is very valid in that we need to “fix the problem” (quality of life in the Middle East) instead of address the symptoms (i.e. terrorism). To do that means to change the status quo in the region, and to forgo the policy of containment that led us to this situation. Successes to date:
The extreme Taliban government which killed thousands and denied rights to millions is gone.
The largest military threat in the region is gone, and its people just voted on a demographic constitution.
Our bases have been removed from Saudi Arabia as a result of the above.
Pakistan and India have resumed peace talks.
Libya and Algeria, though still struggling with issues, are attempting to join the rest of the peaceful world.
Saudi Arabia is for the first time enacting real reform. Today they announced their first independent human rights organization.
Iran and Syria are feeling the pressure of having a free and democratic society on their borders. Maybe that is why they are sending so many terrorist in to try and stop it.
The road map to peace is bringing to a head the impediments to peace and, hopefully, will begin the peace process and hope to the Palestinians.
Suhasini, these are just a few that I can think of, but I’m sure there are more. I think the only people who are surprised by the war on terror are the people who thought it was just a war to bring Al Qaeda to justice. The other argument against it, which David has made in the past, is that cost of changing the Middle East outweighs the benefit. I disagree, and it is on this main issue that I will not vote for JFK. We must continue this effort and we must continue to obtain positive change in the Middle East; to not succeed would surely mean the death many more Americans.
Thanks George, atleast that was an answer.I agree with many of the things you’ve said, maybe the situation is improving.
However I guess only time will tell, and we’ll just have to wait and see.
Suhasini,
I think George put it very well. (It’s been hard to keep up with posting lately.)
My answer to you would be Islamic Terrorists believe that negotiating with us would not gain them anything, and in fact might corrupt them so that they might go to hell.
We are in a position where we are forced to enact a change the middle east. Quickly.
I do agree that poverty, little education, and corrupt governments create a situation for the terrorists to recruit and propagandize. We need to change that. The problem is that normal diplomatic and humanitarian means could take a hundred years or more to really change things. War to remove dictators and terrorist regimes is messy and will undoubtedly be costly, but can we afford not to do it? We need to be both things simultaneously.
I think I may put together my thoughts on this in a more comprehesive manner to post in a few days.
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