# So is the war in Afghanistan a good war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107 "2009-07-06T18:22:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/21 "2009-07-07T16:14:46Z")
I weighed in on this way, way back, at the beginning. I was against it, and man, did I get the shit pile. Of course, the madness was upon us in those days, we had to strike somebody. The Taliban wouldn’t give us Bin Laden. Was it ever proven that they _could_ have given us Bin Laden, even had they wanted to? Afghanistan is the place great nations go to squandor their young. No place on earth is better suited for an insurgency to resist a modern army. Even air power is largely futile. If you really have the stomach for this, here’s what you must do. You must _swamp_ Afghanistan with troops, garrison a regiment on every mountaintop, and there are thousands of mountaintops. You must not only build a nation, you must build it from scratch, out of a morass of people who hate each other’s guts. Oh, and you must wipe out the warlords. Sometimes, problems don’t have solutions. Even more often, that solution is not military. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/22 "2009-07-07T16:38:24Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > The Taliban wouldn’t give us Bin Laden. Was it ever proven that they _could_ have given us Bin Laden, even had they wanted to? [They did offer to](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.terrorism11), whether or not they actually could have. > [@](#): > > Sometimes, problems don’t have solutions. Even more often, that solution is not military. This may be one, but only because it is almost as misunderstood as the Iraq blunder. The enemy is not really “The Taliban” or Al Qaeda, but the conditions that make a fundamentalist holy-war group attractive to a large part of the population of the region. The battleground is the people’s hearts and minds, not anything that can be usefully bombed. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/23 "2009-07-07T16:50:41Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > 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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)) - 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. 2402 Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th. Over 2 million Japanese civilians were killed. Should we have not entered WWII based upon that?:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/24 "2009-07-07T17:19:34Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [They did offer to](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.terrorism11), whether or not they actually could have. Yup, this is why I thought Bush jumped the gun by a week or two in Afghanistan. It seemed to me that with a little diplomatic effort we might have actually gotten bin Laden, or at least had the Russians fully along with us in the war. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/25 "2009-07-07T18:24:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 2402 Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th. Over 2 million Japanese civilians were killed. Should we have not entered WWII based upon that?:dubious: A few minor distinctions. Japan was a sovereign state, its citizens _might_ be considered as part of a shared responsibility. And, of course, the attack on Pearl was an act of war, not terrorism. The attack was committed by uniformed soldiers and concentrated on military targets. Other than that… ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/26 "2009-07-07T19:01:34Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Yup, this is why I thought Bush jumped the gun by a week or two in Afghanistan. It seemed to me that with a little diplomatic effort we might have actually gotten bin Laden, or at least had the Russians fully along with us in the war. This is a good place to bring up the Project for a New American Century again - a document written during the Clinton Administration by a group of neoconservatives, most of whom ended up with positions under GWB. The essential thrust of the document was “We need an incredibly strong military in order to maintain our global post-Cold War dominance. We could overcome any resistance to increased military spending through some Pearl Harbor-type incident.” Saying that the Bush administration directly engineered September 11 is beyond ludicrous, but the attitudes conveyed in PNAC certainly go a long way to explaining why Bush chose armed might over diplomacy. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/27 "2009-07-07T22:36:31Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > 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? Not quite. One is a nation which provided haven for a group willing and able to make a catastrophic strike at the nerve centre of the civilized world. The other was your cookie-cutter-type, “evil guy” dictatorship of which there are many around the world. Which was minding its own business. Which sits on top of a metric assload of go-juice. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/28 "2009-07-07T22:39:35Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > This is a good place to bring up the Project for a New American Century again - a document written during the Clinton Administration by a group of neoconservatives, most of whom ended up with positions under GWB. The essential thrust of the document was “We need an incredibly strong military in order to maintain our global post-Cold War dominance. We could overcome any resistance to increased military spending through some Pearl Harbor-type incident.” > > Saying that the Bush administration directly engineered September 11 is beyond ludicrous, but the attitudes conveyed in PNAC certainly go a long way to explaining why Bush chose armed might over diplomacy. I doubt it. Congress passed the AUMF for war against Afghanistan almost unanimously (IIRC, only one Congressperson voted no). I can’t imagine any US president not taking immediate military action. Gore supported it, Obama supported it, Clinton supported it, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/29 "2009-07-07T23:58:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I can’t imagine any US president not taking immediate military action. Gore supported it, Obama supported it, Clinton supported it, etc. Sure most most supported going in, but that does not mean that they wouldn’t have leaned a little harder on the diplomatic front than Bush did before taking precipitate action. If Bush in fact did have his eyes on Saddam even back then, he’d wouldn’t have wanted Russian help or a brokered turnover of bin Laden. Both would have complicated his life when it came time to conquer Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/30 "2009-07-08T00:04:27Z")
Originally the Afghan training camps were an important target for 911 retribution. That ship has sailed. The Afghans are in a struggle for control of the country. We can not determine who wins. We can make a hell of a lot of enemies though. Nothing we do militarily will have a lasting effect, unless we plan on staying there forever. Unfortunately we are making big old military bases. We do plan on staying. We do not have enough middle east enemies yet. The Afghanies are learning to hate us for our freedoms. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/31 "2009-07-08T01:03:23Z")
Well, yeah. America goes wherever she wants and does whatever she wants. To whomever she wants to. Thats _freedom_, baby! ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/32 "2009-07-08T09:33:52Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The Afghans are in a struggle for control of the country. They are in a struggle as to who gets to loot the country and pocket aid money and the drug profits. Just like in Vietnam we are essentially fooling ourselves as to what the fight is about, who our friends are and what can be achieved. At least there has been some belated recognition that bombing the shit out of civilians just makes things worse. The war is unwinnable because we simply do not have the will. We are risk and casualty averse and completely unable to countenance the hundreds of thousand of troops we’d need to put on the ground. If the Red Army in its hundreds of thousands and with no restraint at all on the levels of brutality it was prepared to inflict could not conquer the country we have no hope. At the moment we are simply fighting for a bunch of murderous evil warlords just like we fought for the made-up country of South Vietnam and its looting, corrupt landlord class. You can’t just wish democracy into existence and you certainly can’t impose it at the point of a Christian bayonet in one of the most backward, patriarchal Muslim fundamentalist shitholes on the planet. I hope I’m wrong but I think the best that can be achieved is some relatively stable coalition of warlords and taliban thugs. At which point Obama should walk away and let them get the hell on with their looting so long as they keep the place clean of terrorists. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/33 "2009-07-08T12:40:08Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > 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. Meant to ask you earlier: Please trim that broad brush down and aim it in a different direction. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/34 "2009-07-08T13:29:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 2402 Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th. Over 2 million Japanese civilians were killed. Should we have not entered WWII based upon that?:dubious: I’m skeptical about this statement from our good friend **Olentzero** as well, for these reasons plus the fact that he will generally excuse war and all of its consequences so long as that war is waged by his political heroes. Seems awfully convenient, that. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/35 "2009-07-08T14:08:38Z")
War, as Clausewitz noted, is the continuation of politics by other means. Understanding the reasons why a war is conducted and agreeing with the aims of said war is not the same thing as excusing the war and all of its consequences. Tragic and stupid things happen in war; being on the ‘right side’ doesn’t automatically preclude that side from making tragic mistakes. But the mere fact that the otherwise morally reprehensible acts of killing and destruction are sanctioned in war indicates that the moral yardstick by which we judge normal, peacetime behavior is insufficient for judging acts committed in wartime. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/36 "2009-07-08T14:38:39Z")
So you have said - but here you oppose the war in large part because of civilian casualties. These are present in most conflicts, including those with which you “agree with the aims.” The difference seems to be that in those conflicts you will admit their sad necessity, while in this one you won’t. This judgment has nothing to do with these casualties and is based entirely on your political feelings toward said war. Why don’t you just state your political opposition to the war’s aims and leave the civilian casualty argument be? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/37 "2009-07-08T14:44:50Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > So you have said - but here you oppose the war in large part because of civilian casualties. These are present in most conflicts, including those with which you “agree with the aims.” > > The difference seems to be that in those conflicts you will admit their sad necessity, while in this one you won’t. This judgment has nothing to do with these casualties and is based entirely on your political feelings toward said war. > > Why don’t you just state your political opposition to the war’s aims and leave the civilian casualty argument be? There is no ‘sad necessity’ of civilian casualties in the Afghan/pakistan border regions. It is stupid and counter-productive as the Obama administration at least seems to be recognising with regard to air strikes. Now he needs to rein in the drones. It does no good to kill one terrorist if you create a dozen more. Particularly in cultures where vendettas and vengeance play such a huge role. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/38 "2009-07-08T14:54:39Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > The difference seems to be that in those conflicts you will admit their sad necessity, while in this one you won’t. Wrong. The targeting of civilians in general is unacceptable; if the civilians are, however, clearly aiding in the enemy’s prosecution of the war or undermining your own efforts to prosecute, then they become valid military targets. _Indiscriminate_ killing of civilians, on the other hand, is part and parcel of the US prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. The heavy reliance on air strikes makes it impossible to determine which civilians were innocent bystanders and which (if any) were actively aiding al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban, and all too easy for the US to claim that being in the wrong place at the wrong time is evidence enough that they deserved to die. _That_ is what I am opposed to. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/39 "2009-07-08T15:32:08Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > _Indiscriminate_ killing of civilians, on the other hand, is part and parcel of the US prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. The heavy reliance on air strikes makes it impossible to determine which civilians were innocent bystanders and which (if any) were actively aiding al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban, But we don’t indiscriminately kill. We make snap judgements on targets for airstrikes based on a variety of recon and intel, and assess values and risks for such targets. That’s not indiscriminate. Carpet-bombing is indiscriminate. I recall not so long ago a news item about a Predator drone that took a recon photo of a Taliban funeral, where there were dozens of Taliban fighters present, and the Predator was not ordered to open fire. Too much political blowback would have occurred if we had killed those guys. That’s not being indiscriminate either. But it’s war man, it’s ugly and shit does happen, despite your best efforts to the contrary. Intel is never perfect and neither are people. Of course it doesn’t help our aims that the Taliban is firmly entrenched amongst the civilian population and dress and appear as everyone else does. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107/40 "2009-07-08T15:39:38Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I recall not so long ago a news item about a Predator drone that took a recon photo of a Taliban funeral, where there were dozens of Taliban fighters present, and the Predator was not ordered to open fire… Of course it doesn’t help our aims that the Taliban is firmly entrenched amongst the civilian population and dress and appear as everyone else does. So how could they tell the funeral attendees were Taliban, then? One instance of not opening fire on a purported Taliban funeral doesn’t mean the killing in Afghanistan isn’t indiscriminate. Civilians dying in airstrikes because they’re simply in the wrong place at the wrong time is indiscriminate killing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-is-the-war-in-afghanistan-a-good-war/502107.md?page=3)