# why more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 13, 2004, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064 "2004-03-13T09:21:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vasyachkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c5a1d2/32.png) [@vasyachkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vasyachkin)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/1 "2004-03-13T09:21:46Z")
is that proof enough that our govt cares about Oil more than it does about AlQuaeda ? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/2 "2004-03-13T11:24:32Z")
What happened to the _central asian pipeline_ theory? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/3 "2004-03-13T12:28:04Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > What happened to the _central asian pipeline_ theory? :rolleyes: A bird in the hand… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/4 "2004-03-13T13:53:49Z")
It seems that the OP has, shall we say, an agenda, and no answer will be satisfactory except the standard Bush-is-just-evil, but I’ll try. Afghanistan has a much, much smaller population than Iraq. It is also a lot more tribal and insular and village-oriented. If we had put the same amount of soldiers there we would outnumber the villagers in many parts of the country, and it would be universally and correctly seen as terribly heavy-handed, overbearing, and administering Afghanistan as a police state. It’s also mountainous and during certain parts of the year, impassable. It’s sweet that the OP has such faith in the omnipotence and infallibility of our troops, but the truth is that unless we get good leads, we can’t find Al Qaeda guys until they attack us, unless we want to be totally repressive. The Afghans are tough, tough people–little boys are sometimes given real guns for toys–and they don’t scare easily or get intimidated. Besides, our aims there are better served with intelligence and quiet, understated searching for bin Laden and his ilk, not 100,000 Marines smashing down doors in Afghanistan and whoops, damn, we seem to have crossed the unmarked border into Pakistan, here comes an international incident! ---
**Author:** ![Mambo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@Mambo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mambo)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/5 "2004-03-13T14:09:21Z")
> [@Mehitabel](#): > > Besides, our aims there are better served with intelligence and quiet, understated searching for bin Laden and his ilk, not 100,000 Marines smashing down doors in Afghanistan and whoops, damn, we seem to have crossed the unmarked border into Pakistan, here comes an international incident! The problem is that we diverted resources from capturing Osama to capturing Saddam. I remember reading(no cite) that by the time the Iraq war had started we had diverted not just troops and money but significant amounts of Predator Drones in the hunt for Saddam. The drones had been used in the hunt for Osama (remember when we killed those people in Yemen because we thought they were Osama and crew). I think it is very clear that GWB saw, or treated, Iraq and Saddam as a bigger threat than Osama and al-Qaida, ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/6 "2004-03-13T14:56:02Z")
> [@Mehitabel](#): > > Afghanistan has a much, much smaller population than Iraq. Um. No. Iraq population: 24.6 million Afghanistan population: 28.7 million ---
**Author:** ![Sublime5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Sublime5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublime5)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/7 "2004-03-13T15:20:58Z")
The Israeli Jews want the Iraqi Oil. Isn’t it obvious? Should we start to Draft to send our young men to Israels Jew Oil War? ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/8 "2004-03-13T15:43:25Z")
D’oh! No excuse for that. I do know Afghanistan is not as urbanized as Iraq and society is organized very differently. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/9 "2004-03-13T17:54:58Z")
As was discussed [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=236360&highlight=without+flaw), the hope is that transforming Iraq will change the balance of power in the Middle east. Afghanistan was/is in much worse shape before we ever got there, and its chances of becoming a functional nation-state anytime soon are slim. Moreover even if it were to happen, it would not have the same impact on the rest of the Muslim world. In harsh geopolitical terms, Iraq is a pivotal, important nation. Afghanistan is a backwater. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/10 "2004-03-13T22:14:04Z")
The answer is much more simple, folks. There has been virutally no effort, either by the US or by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, to provide a security presence outside of Kabul and a very small number of other locations. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan does not have a heck of a lot of population centers - Kabul is something like 1.5 million in population, and the second city, Khandahar, has like 300,000 to 500,000. Compare that to Baghdad is like 5 million or so, and Basra and Mosul each have between 1 m and 2 m people. Small cities + no security in rural areas = few troops. Personally, I still cannot understand why Bush never flooded the zone in eastern Afghanistan with troops to crack down on AQ movement. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/11 "2004-03-14T09:16:16Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Personally, I still cannot understand why Bush never flooded the zone in eastern Afghanistan with troops to crack down on AQ movement. Because the terrain there is ill-suited to our style of warfare (mountainous; bad for armor and APCs, bad for jet fighters, and we would have had significant numbers of casualties if we moved division-sized units through there. ---
**Author:** ![vasyachkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c5a1d2/32.png) [@vasyachkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vasyachkin)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/12 "2004-03-19T10:40:50Z")
> [@furt](#): > > As was discussed [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=236360&highlight=without+flaw), the hope is that transforming Iraq will change the balance of power in the Middle east. Afghanistan was/is in much worse shape before we ever got there, and its chances of becoming a functional nation-state anytime soon are slim. Moreover even if it were to happen, it would not have the same impact on the rest of the Muslim world. > > In harsh geopolitical terms, Iraq is a pivotal, important nation. Afghanistan is a backwater. i disagree. Iraq was secular and Afghanistan was Muslim. so why would Iraq have greater impact on Muslim world ? it wouldn’t. yes we did go for the ballance of power in middle east, and OIL is that power, not Islam. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/13 "2004-03-19T10:59:20Z")
Iraq borders Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. These are all key countries in the volatile Middle East. Afghanistan is fractious, economically backwards and removed from the political centres. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/14 "2004-03-19T11:01:32Z")
> [@vasyachkin](#): > > i disagree. Iraq was secular and Afghanistan was Muslim. so why would Iraq have greater impact on Muslim world ? it wouldn’t. > > yes we did go for the ballance of power in middle east, and OIL is that power, not Islam. Because we all know that a nominally secular government means a population filled with atheists. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-more-troops-in-iraq-than-afghanistan/234064/15 "2004-03-19T11:21:30Z")
> [@](#): > > If we had put the same amount of soldiers there we would outnumber the villagers in many parts of the country, and it would be universally and correctly seen as terribly heavy-handed, overbearing, and administering Afghanistan as a police state. On the contrary, I believe that if the US had stuck to its original _casus belli_ and occupied every square inch of Afghanistan, and not made such a pitifully transparent attempt to misdirect both the rest of the world and its own troops to Iraq like an incompetent conjurer, it might still have the **sympathy and support of the entire world**. If the first rule of war is to do what your enemy least wants you to do, then diverting so many resources from Afghanistan to the utter _non sequitur_ called Iraq must have made Osama Bin Laden overjoyed.