So is the war in Afghanistan a good war?

Great Debates
1

The consensus of the Left on this board seems to be that Iraq is a bad war, and I can go along with that to some extent.

But what of Afghanistan? It appears to me that this is an equally bad and unwinnable war. Afghans change allegiance at the drop of a hat and war is the national pastime. What do the West hope to achieve there? The elimination of the Taliban? There is no way that’s going to happen, and even if by some miracle it did you’d have some other Islamic fundamentalist army arising in its stead.

Does Barack have a blank check with the Dems as regards this war? Are there no substantial voices raised in opposition? All who have entered Afghanistan with military forces in the past have had bitter cause to regret it, save possibly Alexander the Great.

So for those who do support this war may I ask just what you think we’ve achieved there in the years since the initial toppling of the Taliban? And when, if ever, should we finally pull out?

2

There are two totally different questions here. Is is a “good” war and is it a “hard” war.

The two things are related but not the same question. Is the war in Afghanistan “good” as in justified. Yes, clearly. It is about as justified as any war in American history. The Taliban knowingly harbored a group that attacked America, and are still closely allied with that same group. Deposing the Taliban clearly reduced the effectiveness as Al Qiada, and finally defeating them would be a serious stragegic defeat.

Given that fact, that it is a “hard” war, that will be very difficult to bring to its conclusion, is less important. Getting into a difficult quagmire with not obvious exit strategy in a country that presents no threat, and will only harm our cause in the wider “war on terror” is one thing. But if the war has to be fought, then it has to be fought, it sucks that its going to be hard, and involve alot of inconclusive guerrilla warfare. But that’s war.

3

It’s a good war. Not a great war. And it may be a totally unwinnable war, but that’s neither here nor there.

4

No war is good, of course, so I won’t use that term here. I feel, though, that our actions in Afghanistan were just and necessary, so that is as much justification as any war needs.

5

Well, I don’t know that either war is un-winnable, to be honest. I suppose it depends on how one defines winning.

As for it being equally bad…I’m not seeing it. Again, I suppose it depends on what you mean by bad, but going into Afghanistan was necessary, so that alone differentiates it from Iraq on the goodness/badness scale, IMHO anyway.

If not eliminate them, than at least cut them back and make it harder for them and AQ to operate freely within the country. Both things have been achieved, so if nothing else happens then at least that has been semi-successful to date.

No, probably not, though I don’t think it’s impossible. It’s just unlikely. But even if the Taliban continue to fight from the weeds for a time (and how long could they continue to fight, realistically, at even their current levels?), it beats the alternative, which was the Taliban completely in control and AQ with a safe haven from which to plan mayhem and destruction. Whether or not Afghanistan ever gets it’s shit together really doesn’t impact whether it’s a ‘good war’, or whether or not it would be better to be fighting them there than somewhere else…like here, for instance.

Well, we’ve already done better than Alexander did…or the Brits or Russian’s for that matter. So, we are ahead of the game. Also, we had better reasons than any of them to be fighting there, so I suppose that’s a bonus as well.

We have achieved knocking back both the Taliban and AQ, and putting them on the defensive. We have taken away their safe harbor and pushed them out of the cities and into the bush. We have made them focus on fighting us there than on being able to look beyond Afghanistan’s borders to wonder what other mischief they could be up too. We have also managed to install at least a quasi-stable and sort of friendly government in Afghanistan for perhaps the first time in history, and we’ve done all this with fairly modest causalities (though pretty great expense). Most of the BS excuses for our Iraqi adventure actually work pretty well in the case of Afghanistan, IMHO. And, of course, there is always the possibility that the Afghan government will in fact solidify and become a stronger power and that eventually the Taliban will run out of steam…it takes money and people to keep up their current pace of operations, and both of those factors need some sense of moving forward, some real victories in order to keep them flowing in. It also helps when a major power is bank rolling you, as the US did during the Soviet occupation. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Taliban, so I have to wonder how long they can keep things up.

As for how long we should stay, I’d say we should stay as long as it takes. The reality though is we’ll stay as long as it’s politically acceptable…

-XT

6

Yup, of course letting the war moulder for eight years will we dealt with more urgent conquests has left it in a hell of a shabby state.
Perhaps we can still pull a stable Afghan nation out of it, but it’s going to require a lot of money and hard work. These are resources that America may end up not being willing to give to pulling Bush’s legacy out of the fire. We’ve enough problems at home right now.

7

You know, I really dislike the term good war. I don’t think any war is a good war. I think appropriate war is a much better term.

Yes, Afghanistan is an appropriate war for all the reasons stated above. Too bad W. took his eye off the ball and decided that going into Iraq would be a better idea. I don’t know if we would have completed the job in Afghanistan had we not gone to Iraq, but I believe we would be a lot closer.

8

There are actually 3 Afghan Wars going on right now.

The first is the ISAF war

The second is the CIA funded war

The third is the US war independant of ISAF, under command CENTCOM

Each of these “wars” has a contradictary aim and tactics, the ally of one is the enemy of other and one make peacedeals with a faction, and the other bombs it.

Plus there is Pakistan and its own interests in Afghanistan, which seem to go against ISAF and CIA but are pretty intune with CENTCOM.

So kindly advise; which war is the “good war”.

9

That is a pretty interesting interpretation which is new to me. What are the conflicts of interest between the ISAF, CIA and CENTCOM? Is there a good article which examines the three wars as you define them?

10

As I see it, it was a justified war done badly ( because Bush and friends never actually cared; they wanted Iraq ). So it’s “bad” and “good” at the same time; while technically justifed, due to poor implementation a lot of people have died for little accomplishment.

11

As far as I know there are no conflicts between NATO forces (or International Security Assistance Force/ISAF) and CENTCOM (US). No idea what the ‘CIA funded war’ is, unless he’s talking about specific actions against either drug cartels or terrorist groups…either way, I doubt that it’s nearly as contentious as AK84 is making it out to be.

-XT

12

I think that the war in Afghanistan was justified: To the extent that any nation can be said to have executed the September 11 attacks, it was Afghanistan, and we were going in to get the people responsible. But I’m still not convinced it was a good idea, which is a completely different matter. The key question is whether we’re creating more enemies than we’re eliminating, and to that, I don’t know the answer.

13

Which, ironically, they did badly.
Anyway, when I heard early on that Canadian and British troops would be joining the American effort in Afghanistan, I pictured this generation’s Operation Overlord - the joint invasion by free men to crush tyranny.

14

A good war is an oxymoron.

15

And of course, in the case of Iraq we invaded a sovereign nation, without being attacked first. This is BAD. Few nations supported our right to do so.

In the case of Afghanistan we entered the nation to assist one side of a civil war against the other. The Taliban was not the legitimate government of Afghanistan, virtually no nation recognized it. We had just cause (as Chronos sez), and the general support of most other nations. It’s a good war, perhaps not as GOOD as WWII, sure.

16

I think it has done everything a good war should set out to do: kill people. People have died and others’ lives have been uprooted and ruined. If I were a war, I’d write all my other friends and tell them.

17

The war in Afghanistan is unjustified. The Taliban’s arch-conservative religious policies are comparable to Saudi Arabia’s, yet no one seems to be saying that Saudi Arabia should be invaded to liberate their women. The September 11 attacks were a tragedy, and yet for every person that died on the planes and in the buildings that morning, somewhere between two and nine Afghani civilians - who had nothing to do with the attacks - have died since the war (and the unsuccessful-so-far hunt for Osama bin Laden) began in 2001.

Support for the war and the United States within Afghanistan is poor. There was a fairly extensive poll (warning: text-only PDF) conducted by the BBC in conjunction with some other media networks in February of this year which has a few salient points:

[ul]
[li]More people think Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction, and list problems like the warlords, the economy, and corruption as being worse than the Taliban[/li][li]Far fewer Afghanis think the US is a supportive presence than in 2005[/li][li]Support for the current government has eroded slightly, but not in favor of the Taliban[/li][li]Both the Taliban and the US are increasingly seen as posing dangers to the country (not on the same scale - the Taliban is seen as the bigger danger by far, but more people view the US as a danger than in 2005)[/li][li]Opposition to the presence of US, NATO/ISAF forces has sharply increased since 2006; while opposition to the Taliban and foreign jihadis remain high, the opposition has decreased slightly[/li][li]The US and Karzai are getting more of the blame for the ruin of the country than the Taliban (who still outrank both of them on the scale, but are getting less of the blame)[/li][li]Most people think the government and the Taliban should negotiate a settlement but only if the Taliban lays down their arms[/li][li]A negotiated settlement and the defeat of the Taliban by foreign forces are seen as equally likely[/li][li]Question 25 is an interesting one - for the previous surveys, the question concerned attacks against both US and NATO/ISAF forces, while the 2009 survey only touched on NATO/ISAF forces alone. It makes it seem like Afghanis still think attacks on occupation forces are unjustified, but I wonder what the figures would look like if the question hadn’t been changed. The preceding trends probably give us a good idea.[/li][li]Support for withdrawal within 2 years has gained support at the expense of remaining until the security is restored.[/li][li]Lack of confidence in the US and NATO/ISAF forces to provide security has markedly increased (again, while confidence in the Taliban is still lower, it has begun to increase over the same period)[/li][li]Overall support for US forces has decreased[/li][li]Airstrikes are overwhelmingly viewed as unacceptable, and the US has the lion’s share of the blame for civilian deaths resulting therefrom[/li][li]Fewer people think Obama’s election as President would improve the situation in Afghanistan than thought that either no change would occur or the situation would get worse[/li][/ul]
This list is more than sufficient basis to draw the conclusion that if the people in the middle of the war think the US is more part of the problem than the solution, the war is unjustified. Although the increase in a positive attitude towards the Taliban is slight, the question that should be asked is: How will that trend play out if the occupation continues?

18

Good war but totally unwinnable thanks in large part to the murderous ineptitude of the previous administration.

May end up being Obama’s Vietnam.

19

The trouble is there was no ‘good’ side to the civil war. The Taliban were ‘The Good Guys’ when they took over from the murdering, raping, drug-lord, savages we hired as mercenaries and then handed the country back to.

And in doing so we are making the Taliban ‘The Good Guys’ again.

We forget - there is no such nation as ‘Afghanistan’ regardless of what lines are drawn on maps.

There are clans, tribes and ethnicities. That’s where the loyalties lie. Not with an abstract ‘nation’.

20

I don’t really see a moral difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. Both were countries we invaded to depose a government that wasn’t doing what we wanted them to do.

I think it’s kind a funny that after calling for withdrawal from Iraq for so long, the left is now willing to get even more involved in Afghanistan.

Don’t the same reasons for withdrawing from Iraq apply to Afghanistan?