President George W. Bush 's Afghanistan

As most Americans know, for over 10 years already, we have been in a war with Afghanistan due to the World Trade Center attack on 9/11. The war had a stated goal to dismantle the Taliban and a terrorist organization called “Al-Qaeda,” as well as to end Al-Qaeda’s use of Afghanistan as their base for making facilities such as terrorist training camps and secretive underground bases. The War on Terror began on October 7th, 2001, as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks where nearly 3,000 innocent American citizens lost their lives. Many people do believe that the terrorist attack was a “false flag” operation on America by the Elite who run the country with a goal to run oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan all the way to

For over 2 centuries, Afghanistan has known virtually no time without war. Beginning around 326 B.C. with the conquests of Alexander the Great, to the Persians, British, Russians and most recently, America and our NATO allies, Afghanistan has been cultivated into the country that it is today through a trial by fire. Regardless of this relentless onslaught of foreign military power, the Afghan people have tirelessly defended their homeland with no outside power ever being able to subdue them completely. Following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1989, the country fell into civil war, torn even further apart by fiercely dedicated tribal warlords. This power vacuum led to the rise of a group called the Taliban. Led by a one eyed man

For the past 13 years the United States has been involved in the Afghanistan war, and the reasons for the continuation of the Afghanistan war are very blurry. Not only are the reasons for the United States to fight the war blurry, but it seems the the cost vs. benefit of fighting the war do not equal. Only

1. In President Obama’s speech at West Point, he announced that 30,000 additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan. He made this decision because he said it was vital to the United States’ national interest. The vital national interest at risk in President Obama’s address is the security and safety of the American people as well as the “security of our allies and the common security of the world.” By involving the military and increasing the troop strength, President Obama can achieve the objectives of his strategy. His objectives are to keep the Taliban from becoming powerful, prevent them from government rule, improve Afghanistan security forces and government so they can manage their own country and prevent Al Qaeda from

The United States had to attempt to cooperate with the Afghan government in some way in order to do what they needed to do to win the war, but nothing can possibly be accomplished if the Afghan government is too corrupt to be of any help possible. To start, the watchdog agency found that “The Afghan attorney general[, whose name is not known,] refused to enforce or continue investigating an enormous corruption scandal at the country’s biggest bank” (Bearak 2). This is technically proof that the practices of the Afghan government are pretty much corrupt because not even the attorney general is not willing to further examine a case that is centered around corruption occurring in their own country. Moving on, more evidence of corruption can be seen in the Afghan police forces. According to frontline Coalition troops, “local police in Afghanistan have earned a justified reputation […] as unreliable, underpaid, corrupt, incompetent, lazy, sometimes treacherous, sometimes brave, dope-smoking pederasts” (Foreman 34). This is essentially why Afghanistan must use their military instead of their police forces. The police forces are too unreliable and corrupt to protect their own country. This is due to the corrupt government not paying them enough money, and a corrupt government is one that is a non-cooperative one. Finally, the 2012 SIGAR report shows even more evidence of corruption in the Afghan government. The report showed “that the Taliban remain resilient, that widespread corruption continues to weaken the central Afghan government and that Pakistan persists in providing critical support to the insurgency” (Bumiller 1). Basically, the Afghan government is so corrupt that nothing can be done, neither by themselves nor by the

According to the New York Times, troops in Afghanistan are still heavily reliant on their American counterparts for training, technological resources and intelligence (Mazetti & Shear). While it may be necessary for American troops to be present in an effort to gain intelligence and stabilize activity in the area, we are not there to build their nation. America needs to reduce the number of troops in harms way and reduce the spending for another nation, especially when our budget doesn’t allow for such luxuries.

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

The Afghanistan War has brought many other historic events, including the defeat of the Taliban, and the killing of Osama bin Laden. The Afghanistan War has altered the lives of millions, including those in Afghanistan. The war brought a new government and rid the country of the corrupted government. However great these victories were, there were various drawbacks as a result of the war. The U.S. lost millions of lives and millions of dollars. The U.S. has been driven into debt but these aren’t the only consequences faced by the U.S. The United States has immensely been affected both socially and economically. The United States has suffered from the political consequences the Afghanistan War has brought.

The US led Afghan war ignited soon after the 9/11 attacks on America, killing approximately 3000 US citizens in New York City at the time of George W Bush’s presidency. The tragic attack was brutally carried out by a prominent Al-Qaida Leader Osama Bin Laden, who had just fled his hometown in Saudi Arabia and was living in Afghanistan’s rugged mountains of Tora Bora. The Taliban Government heavily dominated Afghanistan at the time Osama Bin Laden carried out attacks on US soil, and he claimed responsibility for the attack subsequently. As a result, US requested the then Taliban leaders Mullah Omar to hand over Osama to the US authorities since he was responsible for the ferocious inhumane attacks on the US soil, killing thousands and damaging millions of dollar worth of property for revenge and retaliation purposes. The then Taliban leader rejected the US’s offer and denied giving up Osama to the US authorities considering him a special guest, and giving up guest was significantly against cultural code and values for the Taliban, especially for Mullah Omar – the leader. Therefore, George W Bush declared war on Afghanistan, sending thousands of troops and attacking the country. However, taking revenge, retaliation from Osama, and even demolishing Taliban’s terroristic domination over Afghanistan was a reasonable excuse for the US to take immediate action, but sending thousands of US soldiers who some didn’t make it back home, spending billions of US dollars, which also caused

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, is a Washington Post reporter and editor. He has spent three years in Afghanistan and reported extensively about the operations conducted by the ISAF and NATO forces in the post troop’s surge period. He is also the author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: inside Iraq’s Green Zone, one of the New York Times’s 10 best books of year 2007. Interestingly the author was a guest speaker at the USAWC and presented his thoughts to the students of class of AY 14. His talk at the USAWC and relevance of situation in Afghanistan to Pakistan prompted me to select his book “Little America” for writing the critical book report.

It is my belief that the war in Afghanistan has been worth the steep cost. There is no doubt that this cost has been steep with the over 2, 300 casualties of American soldiers, but the importance of assurance of safety from continued attacks by Al Qaeda cannot be overstated. Al Qaeda has been all but destroyed. The leaders that remain have fled to hiding and pose no threat to the United States or any other country. The United States’ goal in Afghanistan has been fulfilled, but it can do much more to fight terrorism from there as

Another example of the “language of power” and the “dictates of realist logic” is provided by United States’ catastrophic invasion of Afghanistan. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, admitted that the Carter administration lied to the American people and the world when it claimed that the US only became involved in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion of December 1979(North, 2002). The Carter administration at that time portrayed the American ‘s involving as the defense of “human rights”, but indeed Carter signed a secret directive on July 3, 1979 ,nearly six months before Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, to support radical Islamic opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul, which was intended to tempt the Russians into the afghan trap and thus provoke a violent soviet response as exactly what the carter administration wanted.

The War in Afghanistan has been ongoing for 14 years, and is now the longest war in American history. In the past President Obama had promised that by the end 2015 he would bring home the majority of U.S. troops, only leaving a small force of about 1,000 remaining, but on October 15, 2015 Obama announced that he was changing his policy; the new policy will have 9,800 troops stay until the end of 2015 and then drop to 5,500 by the end of his presidency, leaving the next president to decide whether or not to end the country’s involvement with Afghanistan. Obama’s decision was made after many military experts informed him that there would be major problems in Afghanistan if he proceeded with his plans of moving the troops out of the country. There are many reasons as to why we should not end our involvement in the country just yet, one of them being that if we were to leave, Afghanistan would be at risk of yet again becoming the

In an age when mankind has the ability to completely annihilate itself through nuclear combat, war can be a more terrifying and powerful thought than ever before. Unfortunately, because of the extent of the actions that the Taliban has committed against both America and its own followers, the United States’ war against terrorism seems to be a necessity. I do feel, however, as if there are many things that can be done by the American government in the near future to peacefully approach a more civil and politically involved Afghanistan. Although my feelings on a war against terrorism are mixed, I do feel that significant actions must be taken in order to restrict the spread of

When Obama was elected in 2008 one of his main goals was to end all war with Afghanistan. Currently Obama has decided to keep the troops in Afghanistan until 2017, extending after his removal from office. According to the New York Times, his decision against the removal is an effort to counter terrorism attacks. Since 2001, after the attack on the twin towers, the US has been trying to fight against terrorism. After the attack, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden both hid in Afghanistan, making it a hideout for terrorists. Before 9/11, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda had formed relations with the Taliban. Today Afghanistan is still unstable and is vulnerable to Isis. Afghani troops, are not able to stand alone, they don’t have the training they require to fight