Why did we ever go to war in Afghanistan?

MikeGolf

The Russians could not do it because they tried to impose their own form of government on the Afghan people.

What we did was allowed the Afghan people to select a method of governing that they were comfortable with. (In effect every tribe has a representative in a parliamentary type council with a consensus leader acting as prime minister.)

Another big difference is that the Soviets were fighting the Afghan people while the US is fighting for the Afghan people.

Remember that the Taliban are a subset of one tribal group (the Pastuns) thus their attempts to rule the rest of the tribes are resented by the Afghan people - who then see US/NATO troops more as protectors than enemies.

Does the Afghan government have a long way to go? Yes. Turning Afghanistan into a real nation-state is probably going to take a couple of decades. We have been grinding the Taliban down steadily over the years. If you look at the numbers - every year the Taliban recruit fewer and fewer people to fight in Afghanistan (the 30-60% yearly casualty rates make things difficult for Taliban recruiters).

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Lima Company - Royal Marines

First of all

The Russians were not taking on the Taliban but the Mujahideen (who were funded by the US by the way, Ronald Reagan was a keen supporter of them)

We are now there to deal with the terrorism threat the Taliban pose and also to eradicate the Heroin trade which funds the T'ban

Crowkit

Was thinking the same myself until 11 pakistanis turned up in the UK in 2007 and were nabbed yesterday.

warrior soul

If I recall right on 11 September 01 the United States of America was attacked by the members of a terrorist group in that particular part of the world. Oh wait, Russia wasn't, could that be why we entered and they didn't?

Agrippa the Roman

We went because of 9/11.

If you don't think we can, you are a loser. I hope you do not have a position to control anything more than a mousetrap.

Laissez-Faire Guy

It's rather simple really. Afghanistan was harboring and providing aid to al Quaeda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. After we figured out who did it and where they were, we gave Afghanistan a choice. We said, turn them over to us, let us come in and get them, or we'll invade.

The Taliban, which was in power at the time, chose not to turn them over to us or let us come in and get them.

robert43041

Exactly. They were looking for Osama Bin Laden. Yet Clinton knew exactly where the guy was, satellite photos and all, could have nuked the guy before 9-11 and decided not to. Strange how it works out sometimes, no?

AL G

I doubt if you could even find it on a map with BIG LETTERS on it

lone butcher Spartan remembers

Some things you are obviously not aware of:
-The term "9/11" or "World Trade Centers".
-Osama bin Laden.
-Terrorism.

Atheist in the Foxhole

First off...don't compare the Soviet Army of the 1980's to the modern U.S. military. The Russians were defeated because the U.S. poured weapons, intelligence, and money into the Muhajideen.

Secondly, we are in Afghanistan because the country was/is a safe haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban who supported them.

Al Qaeda are the terrorists we've been hearing so much about.

By the way, there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq until we decided to wrongly attack that country a few years after we invaded Afghanistan.That's why we have two tough wars to fight now.

Happy woman

Down with marijuana for liberals!

quantumleaper

9/11.

alexander m

well russia lost because we backed the afghanies...and last i checked we easily invaded and took over afghan.
we went to war because they were harboring those resposible for 9/11.

Mark C

I thought we had been told often enough by our Leaders that it was to bring 'freedom and democracy' to an oppressed people.

It would seem we omitted to ask their opinion - They have no use for it and don't want it.

Witch

America joined because of the teroists as they were targeting america and so they felt they had to get rid of threats and England for some of the same reasons but I think mostly to side with america as they think they have a special relationship with america that they need to protect.

johndehaura

Ending the war in Afghanistan on our own terms

The recent surge in poppy production has to be dealt with in new and novel ways that play to our strengths and not to the Talibanâ€™s.

As NATO contemplates a renewed attack on the embedded Taliban - a surge which has already cost hundreds of innocent Afghan lives as well as those of our own troops - it's worth asking if there is not another way; another way to curb the Taliban influence that does not involve killing people.

History is helpful. In the 1970s, Turkey was the largest supplier of heroin in the world. Then the United States got smart and started buying the poppy crop - we still do. The government sold it to U.S. pharmaceutical firms to make legitimate drugs â€“ after all, there are no bad plants, only bad uses for plants. The drug cartel lost control of Turkey and today Turkey is one of our staunchest allies in the Middle East. We later tried a similar approach in India with good results.

From the CIA world fact site we know that the GDP of Afghanistan in 2006 was something under $40 billion. Today, over half the GDP of Afghanistan is tied up in poppy production in some way, and is controlled by rogue warlords who channel profits directly to the Taliban â€“ some $100 million a year. This is an extremely lucrative business and there is nothing even remotely comparable in that region of the world. Sixty percent of Taliban income comes directly from poppy production.

On the other hand, growing food is either uneconomic for the average afghan farmer, or is outright forbidden â€“ at the point of a gun - by the Taliban militia who control the rural regions.

Instead of fighting the Afghan farmer, who is caught in an impossible position, we should buy the crop - all of it â€“ from him. This would:
A. End 60% of Taliban income immediately.
B. Put us on the side of the Afghan farmer instead of making us just one of his several enemies. Hearts and minds...
C. Put a serious dent in the heroin trade - a concern also for Russia and Europe, who blame us for the escalation of their drug problem.
D. Allow us to influence the Afghanistan people by becoming their respectful partner instead of their bullying enemy (there is something extremely unseemly about a country of our size, might, and moral stature, going around burning fields and dropping bombs on subsistence farmers in a desperately poor country. Obama may recognize this intuitively, but mollifying words have to be backed up with concrete action).

Eventually, we need to encourage Afghans to grow food instead of Poppy plants. We should pay a 10% premium over the market price for poppy, for food staples. By finally establishing a middle class of farmers, shopkeepers, and other distributors, supported by microloans, we would cut the Taliban off at the knees. And by supplying a profit motive, the new middle class would be encouraged to form militias or to finally build up the Afghan army to protect themselves against the Taliban â€“ who, despite popular perception, are largely loathed by the average Afghan citizen. As President Obama has publicly stated, you build a Democracy from the bottom up, not from the top down. We have a chance to do this in a way that is cheaper, far less violent, and far more effective than the shoot and burn approach we've tried thus far.

There are other answers to the Afghan situation, if people are willing to examine history and to break out of idealogical molds. We need to play to our strengths, not to the Talibanâ€™s. In a game of attrition, history shows that those who try to forcefully bend Afghanistan to their will, eventually lose.

kitty_bibik

You can find your answer here. Its faster this way Cheers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)

DID I DO THIS?

OPIUM!! We went to war with Afghanistan 3 weeks after 9/11, but it took a lot longer to go to Iraq. and wage a war on terrorism. The Taliban (who had control of the country ) had banned the production of the drug because of their religion. We need the opium. Who has a lot of money in the U.S.? The drug companies. We could not afford to have the drug companies to do without opium.
Why we are planning on going in again I don't know.

Kakjam

To take control of the Poppy crop and make sure that cheyney and rumsfeld's gas pipline from north to south is built.

No more, no less,

Makoto

because some people need to be rich they need oil for money

shoshanna

Bush made up some crap story linking 9/11 to Afghanistan when each of them are separate issues.

Yeah right!

All of the above answers have been brainwashed by the mainstream media. The real reason the troops are in Afghanistan is to control the opium trade which is the largest in the world.
WATCH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W3HYu4CcgU
(Afganisatan opium and bin laden)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enWDthX7SFU
(CIA World war 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oARBdBtGenM
(John Perkins)

BELOW ARE THE COUNTRIES THAT AMERICA HAS INVADED

Much are in violation of international law, licence to kill.
In the last 40 years America and the CIA have carried out over 3, 0000 operations and over 10, 000 minor operations. Resulting in a MINIMUN of six million people killed, mostly from the third world.

1, China 1945 â€“ 1960s
2, Italy 1947 â€“ 1948
3, Greece 1947 â€“ 19050
4, The Philippines 1940s & 1950s
5, Korea 1945 â€“ 1953
6, Albania 1949 -1953
7, Eastern Europe 1948 -1956
8, Germany 1940s
9, Iran 1953
10, Guatemala 1953 â€“ 1954
11, Costa Rica Mid 1950s
12, Syria 1956 â€“ 1957
13, Indonesia 1957 -1958
14, Western Europe 1950s & 1960s
15, British Guyana 1963 â€“ 1954
16, Soviet Union 1950s & 1960s
17, Italy 1950 â€“ 1970s
18, Vietnam 1950 â€“ 1973
19, Cambodia 1955 â€“ 1973
20, Laos 1957 â€“ 1973
21, Haiti 1959 â€“ 1963
22, Guatemala 1960
23, France/Algeria 1960s
24, Ecuador 1960-1963
25, The Congo 1960 â€“ 1964
26, Brazil 1961 â€“ 1964
27, Peru 1960 â€“ 1965
28, Dominion Republic 1960 â€“ 1966
29, Cuba 1959 â€“ 1980s
30, Indonesia 1965
31, Ghana 1966
32, Uruguay 1964 â€“ 1970
33, Chile 1964 â€“ 1973
34, Greece 1964 â€“ 1974
35, Bolivia 1964 â€“ 1975
36, Guatemala 1962 - 1980
37, Costa Rica 1970 -1971
38, Iraq 1972 â€“ 1975
39, Australia 1973 â€“ 1975
40, Angola 1975 â€“ 1980s
41, Zaire 1975 â€“ 1978
42, Jamaica 1976 â€“ 1980
43, Seychelles 1979 â€“ 1981
44, Grenada 1979 â€“ 1984
45, Morocco 1983
46, Suriname 1982 â€“ 1984
47, Libya 1981 â€“ 1989
48, Nicaragua 1981 -1990
49, Panama 1969 â€“ 1991
50, Bulgaria 1990
51, Iraq 1990 â€“ 1991
52, Afghanistan 1979 â€“ 1992
53, El Salvador 1980 â€“ 1994
54, Haiti 1986 â€“ 1994
54, Yugoslavia 1999
55, Afghanistan 2002 and still there for the opium
56, Iraq 2003 and still there for the oil

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