The War Of Afghanistan During The United States

The Afghanistan War was the longest war in history fought by the United States. The war took place over 13 years and 59 countries participated in the war. The US led the war in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, after the Taliban refused to give America Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda. As a result of this on the 7th October 2001 the US and the UK launched Operation Enduring Freedom. They were then joined by other forces including the Northern Alliance, which had been fighting the taliban since 1996 when they came into power. The main goal for the Afghanistan war was to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

After the September 11 attacks, it was widely believed that the terrorists responsible were hiding throughout the hills and caves of Afghanistan. The United States chose to invade Afghanistan because it was searching for the terrorists. President Bush believed that the Taliban was hiding Osama Bin Laden and his people. The United States and our allies were successful at removing the threat during World War II, but while our military was able to overthrow the Taliban and capture some of Bin Laden’s associates, we are still involved in a war in the Middle East.

When the soviet union invaded afghanistan the war lasted for 9 years 1979-1989. Between 1 million to 1.5 million people were killed in that war and millions of people when to a diffrent countries such as pakistan or iran as refugees. The United States supported Afghanistan by supplying arms to the Mujahadeen. Ronald Reagan sent billions of dollars to the Mujahadeen so he can help Jihad against the Soviet Union. “Reagan believed this defense shield could make nuclear war impossible. Reagan deployed CIA special activities division paramilitary officers to train, equip and lend the Mujahideen battalion against the Soviet army”. Reagan’s objective was winning the Cold War and the rollback of communism. The United States also offered financial and

The war in Afghanistan started was a direct response to the 9/11 attacks. This deadly terrorist acts killed thousands of American citizens. After the attack president bush made it clear that whoever is responsible for this horrendous act of violence will pay and will be brought to justice. After the American intelligence agencies found that Al- Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks president bush gave the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan an ultimatum for harboring al-Qaeda and their leader which says hand over the terrorist that are responsible for the attacks or share their fate. The Taliban leadership requested the American government to provide any avoidance proving that Osama bin-Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks before they hand him over to the American government. The Bush administration said that the Taliban should hand over Osama bin-laden without any conditions or suffer the same consequences as Al-Qaeda. Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks the war began. The war in Afghanistan was going on for more than a decade and there is no end in sight. The war costs the U.S more than a trillion dollars which is having a negative effect on the economy, with all the money and resources that were poured into Afghanistan, the lives people in Afghanistan didn’t improve instead it only got worse.

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.

Soldiers are often considered robots, meaning they have no real concern about the battle they are fighting. This is not true, especially in the case of the war on terrorism. If one were to ask a soldier what he thought of the war in Afghanistan, he would immediately tell you that it is a necessary war to keep the United States safe from the terrorists. Unfortunately, Americans do not think the same way soldiers or the families of soldiers do. Most Americans believe the war is a waste of time, money, and American resources. This thought process is not only wrong, but completely unfair to the troops serving. The Afghan war cannot be won by fighting or blood loss, but the war can and will be won by American occupation in Afghanistan.

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 question is in reference to the American attack of Afghanistan in October 2001, following the supposedly terrorist attack that took place when two hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Tower building in New York. The issue that will be discussed is the speculation that the attack was predominantly based on the past conflict concerning power and oil between the United States government and the Taliban organization. The essay will take on a realist perspective with the understanding that government and non-government actors are inherently selfish in nature and more concerned with relative gains (Kissinger 1979). Firstly, the essay will refute the American claims that the attack was solely based as retaliation for the September 11th incident. Secondly, in order to debate the extent to which the Afghanistan invasion was directly aimed at the Taliban, the many reasons for why the Taliban was targeted will be discussed. The United States attacked Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to accept American conditions

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 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq presented a new problem for the military they would be fighting an insurgency in both of these countries. The question how to fight small bands of often unidentified combatants led to the adoption of many practices and techniques from law enforcement agencies around the United States. The techniques and practices were somewhat refined the technology used to track individuals was still in its infancy and most was not user friendly or robust enough to handle the challenge of tracking hundreds to thousands of people and places with any detail. The other factor that was lacking was how to get the local populous to trust outsiders. These three separate but connected areas needed a quick upgrade.

Before the US invasion, life for the population of Afghanistan was hell under the rule of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban. This imposed reactionary religious restrictions and the suffocating social relations under the death penalty with a savagery that was recorded in the collective memory of the world through the stoning in stadiums against women accused of "crimes" like adultery. In addition, the Taliban imposed a feudal economic relations that kept shackled and impoverished peasants. While his schedule sometimes entered strong conflict with that of the United States, essentially the Taliban did not object to the general rule of Afghanistan by imperialism. In fact, he had been eager to make deals with the United States on pipelines and on other fronts. After the September 11, 2001, the Taliban government in Afghanistan did not become intolerable for the US imperialists because of its completely reactionary nature and all the horrors it brings to the people of Afghanistan. Indeed, a factor that contributed to the rise of the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist forces were economic support, military organization and provided the Islamic Mujahideen from the United States and Saudi Arabia (on many occasions by the Pakistani intelligence services) in their fighting against the Soviet Union in the 80s when the United States sought to beat a rival imperial power and more control over the Middle East and Central Asia. Moreover, the US government directly supported the

Some Background to the Afghanistan War is that during 1970’s Afghanistan became pro-soviet and a communist nation. However the fundamentalist Islamic group known as the Mujaheddin strongly opposed the government. The Soviets wanted to help their ally resist this threat but did not particularly want to send soldiers. However in 1979 when Hafizullah Amin came to power in Afghanistan he started to look towards the West, in particular America to help deal with this threat.

Since the September 11th attacks in 2001, the United States has been at war with Afghanistan. Their goals were to remove the Taliban, track down those in charge of the attacks, and destroy Al-Qaeda.

Afghanistan, a small mountainous country in the Middle East has experienced over 80 conflicts in the past 172 years1. The world’s major powers, Britain, the Soviet Union and America have all been to war in Afghanistan and failed to successfully conquer it. The Saur Revolution and following Nuristan Uprisings caused the Soviet Union to send military aid to Afghanistan, however when the aid was not enough to keep Soviet interests in Afghanistan, it launched its invasion. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, expecting a small, decisive victory against what seemed a rebellion compromised of mainly farmers and local tribesmen, the Mujahedeen. However, in the following 9 years, the Soviet Army was trapped in a foreign country against a seemingly