The Pros And Cons Of The Afghanistan War

Although some areas in Afghanistan and Iraq have improved and schools have been established, the United States has not done enough to help the people there. For example, the United States issued propaganda after the September 11 attacks that called for the liberation of women in Afghanistan. American citizens rallied in support of this movement and also supported the war because of it. Although some conditions have improved for women, the United States did not do as much as they said they would (Stabile). In addition, the opium trade has worsened in Afghanistan since the arrival of American troops; the country produces twice as much opium as it did in 2000 (Aikins). The War on Terror has also caused millions of innocent civilians’

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

A total of 19 men hijacked four planes, using them to attack our military and economic centers and to murder almost 3,000 innocent people including men, women and children (Address on the War in Afghanistan. 1). The perpetrators were a part of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, an organization that we have been using force against, along with those who harbor them, since 2001, days after the 9/11 attacks (Address on the War in Afghanistan. 1). With the support of our allies, NATO and the United Nations, we sent troops into Afghanistan after the Taliban denied turning Osama bin Laden over, the leader of al-Qaeda, and in the matter of months, al-Qaeda’s members scattered and many were killed (Address on the War in Afghanistan. 1). What’s next? President Obama addressed this in his speech on the War in Afghanistan, saying 30,000 additional troops will be sent to Afghanistan for the next 18 months, and after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. (Address on the War in Afghanistan. 2) Obama’s strategy is: “We must deny al Qaeda a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future.” (Address on the War in Afghanistan. 3.) Once the United States military has aided security forces in becoming more powerfully built, many other things would fall into place.

Mr. Chandrasekaran's thesis is that the Afghans could have prospered in their own terms and The United States could have achieved its objectives if the United States had taken a long view from the beginning of its involvement in Afghanistan. The U.S. approach was almost entirely short-term in its strategy and tactics. Lack of coordination between the U.S. military and civil departments / agencies rendered the strategy almost ineffective.

The fourth mission was to collect more information on Iraqis weapons of mass destruction activity, as with the objective of collecting information on other terrorist groups. The U.S military recovered documents on its illegal weapon programs. The fifth objective was too lock Iraq’s oil production and fields. Many people thought was the first objective because U.S military forces secured the filed within early hours of the war. The U.S had made announcement on April 14th, that all of Iraqis major oil sources were under control. There was very little damage on the resources. One of the last goals that were important to the United States was too give Iraq humanitarian relief and end sanctions. Even while the war was still in the process the U.S forces started to help the

The “War on Drugs” has been a hot topic for several decades in the United States. The argument for the success of this campaign usually varies depending on one’s political affiliation. The government handled the ongoing campaign differently with each new administration taking command, most of them having no little success. The fact of the matter is that the ideal of a “drug free civilization” is far from reality. The world is coming to terms that the various drug-fighting programs across the world are not producing the desired results. In fact, UN Office on Drugs and Crime doesn’t publicly aspire to reach a drug-free world. That wishful scenario seems very close to impossible at this moment. The office biggest claim to fame is that that the international drug markets have stabilized, which is not very optimistic.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. The goal was to bring down the terrorist organization responsible for the attacks, Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has been defeated, however, some believe that continued American presence in Afghanistan is important because the country now serves as a base to fight terrorism. Others believe that the United States' continued presence is unjustified and that the cost of the war has been too steep make continued presence in the country worthwhile.

There are defining moments in American society; the attack on Pearl Harbor, Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, 11 September 2001. On 19 March 2003, I was watching television with my parents while I was working on a school project for debate class. Oddly enough, the debate the following school day was to be about whether or not the global war on terrorism should expand to Iraq. Then President George W. Bush announced to the nation, “My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger (CNN, 2003).” On that day a coalition of over 35 counties led by the United States of America began what we know today as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The more you research about Operation Iraqi Freedom the more you tend to realize that it began well before 19 March 2003. It dates back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s and it continues well past 18 December 2011, the day the last troop left Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom continues through

Lastly, heroin and krokodil impact American terrorism. Heroin comes from a poppy plant that can reach maturity in a short amount of time. The opium that comes from that poppy plant is turned into morphine. The morphine that is extracted is then turned into different forms of heroin. The poppy plants are mostly grown in Afghanistan with “... its total export value… [of] about $40 billion… About a quarter went to Afghan opium farmers” (“Krokodil Drug Facts: Effects…”).

Kill/Capture: How An Aggressive United States Military Initiative May Be Doing More Harm Than Good in Afghanistan

Firstly, it is important to understand the reasoning for the United States to support the Afghani rebels, or the Mujahedeen, against their Soviet invaders. Afghanistan was a mess. In 1978, the President Mohammad Daoud

The U.S. War in Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history. After the September 11 attacks in New York, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan followed, supported by a collation of all NATO members and other countries, the war’s fundamental goals were clear, with the primary objective of dismantling the Taliban government, bring Osama bin Laden to justice, and attempt to curb the growth of terrorism (CITE). Now, 16 years later, the war calls for hot debates. Many argue about the status of the war, is it too long? Is it worth the cost of lives? In short, the US did achieve the fundamental goals of the war. But if the unpredicted length of the war and the astronomical cost of the war, both in money and lives were added into the deciding factor,

First, with the withdrawal of United States’ troops from Afghanistan and the vast distance between the two countries, Washington will relinquish its immediate influence on the country (Quddus). The United States was hard pressed to control and influence the events occurring within Afghanistan with troops on the ground. Due to the long physical distance,

On Monday, Taliban forces executed an assault on the city called Lashkar Gah. THe assault started with a suicide bomber and ended with Afghan forces pushing back the Taliban. Them bomber managed to kill fourteen people, and ten of them were police officers. They attempted to take over Lashkar Gah because it would give them complete control of the province, Helmand. When I began reading this I became surprised how taliban forces are making all of this push that had lasted a week and I read about it today. I think this shows that our society tends to linger in a reality that we live in a utopia, when really it is the opposite, a dystopia. We are so ignorant to this delusion, that one day it maybe the one thing that destroys our freedom. I think

As the Afghan civil war continued, things progressively got worse for Afghan women, as more of Afghanistan landed under Taliban control. In 1992 when the Marxism inspired government that had been left behind as a result of the Soviet Union fell, it was instead replaced with a more traditional Islamic inspired government, and as such the Islamic State of Afghanistan was created. This was when the rights and treatments towards women can clearly be seen to be backtracking as the constitution was abandoned and a number of new laws were imposed. Part two of the civil war saw significant deterioration of Afghan women’s rights as the Taliban gained more control of Afghanistan.