Post 9/11 Attacks: The War In Afghanistan

The day was Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. During the morning hours on this specific day, one of the deadliest attacks on human soil had occurred. On this day, over 3,000 innocent people had lost their lives when four planes had crashed; two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon, and one in Pennsylvania that was believed to be en route to the White House. After this attack, the citizens of the United States of America had lusted for revenge against those who were responsible for bringing so much destruction and tragedy among their nation. The 9/11 attacks were, essentially, the catalysts that propelled the United States of America into the Afghanistan War to fight the Taliban and other terrorist

Issue: According to SIGAR the production of opium in 2013 was 209,000 hectares and with the deteriorating security in many parts of rural Afghanistan, it is expected to increase by 7% in 2014. According to Tahir Qadiry of BBC News, Kabul 1 million men, woman, and children in Afghanistan are addicted to Opium. The opium trade undermines the Afghanistan state, financial sectors, breeds corruption, sustains criminal networks and provides significant financial support to the Taliban. The Taliban uses these funds to finance their terrorist activities including the purchase of weapons. The DOD and other US agency have tried to build reliable Afghan counter-narcotic partnership, but these efforts have failed, due to lack of local government support, despite the $7.6 billion the

On April 13th, 2017 the United States military dropped the largest conventional bomb in it’s arsenal on an ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan. The bomb killed at least 94 ISIS fighters. The blast destroyed three underground tunnels as well as weapons and ammunition, but no civilians were hurt, Afghan and US officials said.

With a direct result of the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, armed forces from the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, invaded the country of Afghanistan with a “Three Phase” mission which was lead to defeat and bring down the total power that the Taliban held in Afghanistan and in the capital city of Kabul. The Headquarters for the terror cell Al Qaeda was located in Afghanistan at the time, during this time the invasion, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, led by coalition forces was conducted in order to bring down Al Qaeda and remove the Taliban from power as well as end any more growth along the Pakistan border. The war began on October 7, 2001 and would be considerd the longest war in United States

Presidents have sent troops to different places all over the world for various reasons. They’ve been doing it for years. Some missions have been called back and others have stayed to fight. It all has depended on what congress has decided. On October 7th, 2001, The War on Terrorism in Afghanistan began.

Prior to the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the United States was involved in Afghanistan the early 1980's. To truly understand the how our government is in this mess Afghanistan war, we must look back at the Soviet Union involvement into Afghanistan as well. In 1979, the USSR entered neighboring Afghanistan as an attempt to boost the newly established pro Soviet regime in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul. The takeover of the country was fast: nearly 100,000 soviet soldiers took over major cities and highways in order to complete military and political control. This began a brutal, decade long invasion by the Soviet Union to subdue the Afghan civil war and maintain a friendly and socialist government on their southern border.

The War on Terror required utilizing pre-emptive war, regime change, and unilateralism. An example of all three foreign policy tools is Afghanistan. Bush took a hard line approach with the Taliban government of Afghanistan, who had a semi-friendly working relationship with Osama bin Laden’s terrorist group, al Qaeda, by declaring that if the Taliban government did not hand over bin Laden, the U.S. would invade Afghanistan. The War on Terror created a renewed moralism that had effectively disappeared in the 1990s and was reminiscent of the moralism of the Truman years, as mentioned previously. This new moralism framed the war in terms of good versus evil as a mobilization tactic for the public to support ("After Sept. 11, 2001: A Transformed US Foreign Policy."). Bush’s famous words about “axis of evil” were reminiscent of both World War II, with the axis powers, and the Cold War, with the evils of communism (“After Sept. 11, 2001”). This rekindling of American’s moralism of international liberalism is a characteristic of an all in president because the issue is no longer only a factual and risk debate, but an ethical one as well.

Every day someone’s child, spouse, sibling or parent makes the courageous decision to join the United States Army. This is something less than one percent of Americans ever do, this takes a special person to become a defender of the Constitution. Of those defenders, how many of them have deployed to a combat zone, most specifically Afghanistan? The United States military has spent over 10 years in Afghanistan. Soldiers and families are beaten and tired after this decade of combat and losses no one can even understand. These losses and brokenness is why it is time to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and bring them home in a steady and slow pattern or increments. Closing out a combat and war zone takes a lot of planning, preparation, training and cooperation from all Allied forces and host nations; Afghanistan is no different. A decade of war needs to come to an end and Afghanis need to take charge of their country and people and stand on their own two feet.

The Soviets had been helping Afghanistan since the 1920s to be a buffer state and to stop the influence of Iran and Pakistan, which were backed by the United States, later when Iran got a new leader it resulted in a challenge for the Soviets and Communism, this made the Soviets and Afghans hate each other. In 1979 Afghans rebels and the soviets started a war with each other. Soviet leaders wanted to kill the afghan leader and replace him with a new one that supports communism. The Soviets having over 75,00 people were still not able to take down the Afghan rebels. Although Soviets tried to stop this from happening, the Islamic groups in Pakistan which were backed by the United States helped the Afghans get weapons. With the war going on for many more years in 1984 The United States president released a ground to air missiles called Afghan freedom fighters. These missiles were one of the causes for the war to end in 1989, with 20,000 soviet deaths and 1,000,000 afghan deaths, The

The United States’ prolonged stay in Afghanistan has lead some to label the war in Afghanistan a rerun of the war in Vietnam. While the two share some pertinent characteristics, the divergent characteristics of the wars far outweigh their similarities. That being said, some insights can be garnered from the war in Vietnam that are important to be considered in any conflict the U.S. should find itself in. An analysis of the U.S.’s entry, commitment, and exit in the Vietnam war indicate that a strong commitment to a clear and attainable exit strategy is imperative.

Outside influence has always be an issue for Afghanistan as demonstrated by the numerous military campaigns that surround its history most notably by Alexander the Great, British, Soviet Russians, and today by Western powers. During 1880-1901 Abdur Rahman Khan came into power. It was at this time Abdur Rahman expressed that the British were “really anxious to see Afghanistan a strong independent Government-a true ally and barrier, “ whereas the Russians wished “to see Afghanistan divided into pieces and very weak, if not entirely cleared out of the way to India.” (Ewans, pg 99). Although considered a strong ruler who re-established the Afghan Government his power came from the reliability of the British for his protection throughout his reign.

There are, however, aspects that disqualify the realism theory in examining the War in Afghanistan. For example, realism explicitly applies to relations between nations and consequently, war between countries. This was not the case, since the war did and still does not involve conflict between America and Afghanistan. Rather the war was between America and the Taliban government that supported the infamous terror group, al Qaeda. For this reason, realist theory does not explain this highly controversial war. Another aspect that contravenes realism as an appropriate theoretical approach to understanding the War in Afghanistan is that fact that, America toppled the Taliban government within its first few months of the invasion. Realism cannot, as a result, explain why American troops and those of allied forces have not yet been pulled out of Afghanistan more than a decade after war started (Bird and Marshall 37).

To what extent was the United States attack on Afghanistan aimed directly at the Taliban?

The War in Afghanistan has been an all consuming conflict for the US government since we started to launch air strikes on October 7, 2001. This is a conflict that’s been brewing since before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. This war has the continuation of past conflicts in it, conflicts that can be connected a good deal to the interference of other large powers, such as the USSR. From keeping an eye on the oil reserves, pressuring Iran, and keeping Pakistan stable, our interests and motives for occupying Afghanistan are undeniably laced with many ulterior motives, providing us with the issue of unfavorable opinion and our interests being the source of terrorist attacks. Afghanistan is a country that has been plagued with

In 2001 the Twin Towers were destroyed by two planes and also there were two other planes one was supposed to hit the White House and the other the Pentagon. This started the war in Afghanistan. It’s been eight years since this incident, and the United States and President Obama still want to keep this war going. Next year they are going to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. There are three reasons why they shouldn’t send them: one for their safety; two Afghanistan should keep their business to themselves; and three it’s going to affect the economy big time.