Is the war in Afghanistan justified?

MayCaesar

Wars are almost always based on lies and deception, as justifying a war plain and square is very difficult and politically inconvenient.

Now, I do think that the war was warranted, as the situation in Afghanistan was awful; Taliban is every bit as bad as ISIS, and what they turned that country into was painful to watch.
What I dislike is how the aftermath of that war was handled. The US should have done the same as what it did in South Korea and Japan: stay, reform the system and rebuild the infrastructure. And it seemed that this was what was going to happen: large investments were initiated, and even an ambitious highway project was initiated, with the goal to connect all major Afghanistan cities by modern roads. However, later the idea was abandoned, and Afghanistan was let to tent to itself - which is difficult, with lack of democratic free market culture, and with Taliban still around. Hence, reforms in Afghanistan never really took off, and it remains an impoverished and unstable state.

Same goes for Iraq. The US government has lost its bite after the Cold War ended and no longer tries to uplift the countries it fights wars in. This is a huge mistake and is going to cost both us and the people in affected regions a lot in the long run.

TKDB

"Is the war in Afghanistan justified?"

Humanity day after day, justifies war, because Humanity as a whole refuses to consciously evolve past it.

To be able to maintain some sort of the Human definition of peace, you prepare for conflict, or war, as a way to maintain that Human definition of peace?

Because the word War, overall Globally owns the Human consciousness, while Peace is treated like a "Stop Gap," dream. 

If Humanity, Globally didn't hunger like it does for War, the word War, wouldn't have a chance to exist, because Humanity wouldn't have a need for it?

My guess, is that Humanity, is probably 2 - 3 Centuries away from treating Peace, in the same manner, that it does War.

Some of humanity, loves war, just like it apparently relishes its illegal drugs, just like it apparently, relishes the amounts of firearms that exists, around the globe, like it apparently, relishes being inhumane to other humans?

Humanity in a sense seems to have a love affair going on with War, because Peace is a strange concept to those who have violent, corrupt, or apparently brainwashed concepts or tendencies?

When you view the evidence that speaks to Terrorism, and the Suicide bombers, those instances are the tip of Humanities spear of War, against itself. 

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar The situation and how everything played out is ridiculous, but we should never have been there to begin with, and we should definitely not be there now, its just a huge waste of tax dollars and lives, and its all for nothing. It's like the unknown wars in George Orwell's 1984 came true, except we are in the middle east instead of Africa.

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

Who knows. Back in 2001, women in Afghanistan were beheaded for hiding their children from soldiers who wanted to send them to poppy plantations to essentially be slaves. If any place warranted invasion, that was the place.

Whether the US government should try to fix awful situations in other countries or not is up to debate and depends on the individual point of view. The way I see it, the US military budget is blown out of proportion already, so the army might as well do something that has a chance of improving situation in some other country, rather than just sit on the money.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar When we invaded, it wasn't to solve those problems, in fact we just made it worse. That's what the lies and deception were, we were never there to stop that infect, we enabled it.

This was and is the lie!

It was never even on the table to attempt to do so, it was as far as I can tell, an excuse to expand government, make money through war profiteering, and obtain resources we already have.

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

That was my initial point: the execution was poor, but the idea of the invasion itself was not necessarily wrong. People sometimes do the right thing for wrong reasons, and I am not sure what the right thing here was.

It is easy to theorise what one should have done in hindsight, when we know the consequences of the taken action. It is much harder to project the consequences of the alternative action. What if the war of 2001 never happened? I do not know what would be going on now in that region then, but I doubt the situation there would be much better than it is now. Terrorists enslaving an entire nation rarely leads to the best outcome possible.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar I don't think you quite understand what I am saying, if you are not thoroughly outraged right now, I have not made my point.

The "moral reasons" we got into the war were made up after the fact. 

The idea of the invasion had NOTHING to do with why it happened, there was NO REASON, except the military industrial complex was being greedy!

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

It takes a lot for me to get outraged, and I doubt any online discussion is sufficient for that.

Like I said, people sometimes do the right thing for wrong reasons. I am aware that the reasons the US government initiated the invasion likely had little to do with the genuine desire to improve the situation there, but it does not make the invasion itself wrong necessarily.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar It wasn't even the right thing though...

It is as if a politician got into office on the promise that they would help a homeless epidemic, with a demolition company as there primary campaign contributor. Then as soon as they are in office instead of building new homes, they bulldoze existing homes to create a site for low income housing, only to drop the project late in the term because their wasn't enough funding, at which point the process repeats for two more election cycles.

In this scenario, only the demolition company comes away on top. The people suffer, tax dollars are wasted further exasperating the problem, and the real threat to our civilization, the intermingling of wealth and power goes untouched, and often unnamed.

That is the kind of incompetence and mismanagement we are talking about here. If you want something to be outraged about, this is that thing. We are talking trillions of dollars wasted, literally for no reason, no win condition.

We like to get enraged about trivial things in this country, like LGBTQ rights, gun rights, and the trump impeachment. These things are minuscule in comparison to this can of worms. The money we spend on wars we gain nothing from is a net loss from each and every US taxpaying individual and business.

This is something that should be in the streets protesting against, but it's not going to happen if people don't care that they have been robbed.

piloteer

The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was unfortunately something that needed to be done, but that war was really the repercussions of our earlier involvement in Afghanistan in the late seventies and throughout most of the eighties, so however "justified" America's actions were in 2001, in the whole scheme of things, we should have never been involved in Afghanistan's war with Russia, because that laid the groundwork work for the war in 2001. If Russia controlled Afghanistan, it's unlikely al-Qaeda would have been able to build training camps there, and if they did, they would have also been an enemy of the Soviet Union.      

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

But, once again, you are talking about the consequences of poor actions. I do not disagree with you that the aftermath of the war was poorly handled; however, we are talking about the war itself in this thread, not its consequences.

I think your mental experiment is backwards. Allow me to propose another one, closer related to my point. Suppose there is a politician running on the premise that urgent economical reforms are warranted, because an alien civilisation is about to eradicate humanity by a massive nuclear bombardment, and the only way to escape it is to develop the economy strong enough they will want to trade with. The politician gets elected, the economy undertakes reforms and booms. 10 years later, the GDP per capita is 1,000 times as high as it was before. People are now living like gods.
Then one day it turns out that there is no alien civilisation, and the politician made the whole thing up. Does it retract from the effectiveness of the reforms? Apparently not.

In case of the war in Afghanistan, suppose a well executed war with a properly handled aftermath could uplift Afghanistan the same way handling of the aftermath of the World War 2 uplifted Japan. Suppose, as a result, Afghanistan could be one of the leading economies today, with virtually no crime, setting an example for the whole region. Trading with the US and benefiting our economy tremendously.
I am not saying that this is necessarily the case. However, if it is, then the act of war could be seen in a very positive light, even if initiated for wrong reasons.
The action should be considered based on its own merit, not on the intent behind it. Good intentions often lead to hell, and bad intentions sometimes lead to heaven. The action should also not be mixed with the following or preceding actions, and should be considered on its own (in a proper context, obviously).

Dee

@MayCaesar

****** Now, I do think that the war was warranted, as the situation in Afghanistan was awful; Taliban is every bit as bad as ISIS, and what they turned that country into was painful to watch.

It’s a fair point and the alleviation of suffering is always a good thing , what baffles me about these situations is how come governments across the world at the same time observe countries like North Korea and do nothing? Why does their suffering not merit the same attention and response internationally? 

A third of the population live in “correction camps” which are basically concentration camps a million and a half citizens its reported are meant to have died in its famine , yet its tolerated which I find bizarre.

Government's around the world talk about alleviating brutality and injustice yet look at countries like Saudi Arabia a brutal regime under Sharia law yet Trump signed an arms deal of over 300 billion dollars with them  last year , I find it absolutely incredible that collectively politicians talk about equality , justice and social harmony yet attempt to  justify their double standards and hypocrisy  through spin and B S supplied by highly paid P R agencies 

MayCaesar

@Dee

Different countries have different situations. North Korea, for example, is a hornet's nest that, if stirred, can blow up far worse than the Middle East. The Korean peninsula is the most militarised territory on Earth, very densely populated too. If the Second Korean War starts, the consequences will be unimaginable, with millions casualties and a humanitarian crisis of the scale the world has not seen since World War II. Seoul is nearly at the border, and a couple of nuclear strikes at the downtown alone are going to kill up to a million people.

I do not know when military invasion is warranted, and when other ways of applying pressure are preferable. In case of North Korea, I personally think that the opposite approach is needed: they should be welcomed into the international community, so they are, at least, incentivized to open their system up for investment and abandon some of the more brutal practices. Their system is too far gone to hope for a spontaneous revolution to happen, and the sanctions have been applied for over 70 years and have not led anywhere.

Saudi Arabia is another unfortunate case. A country a supposedly temporary alliance against common enemies with which went on for too long. Then, again, perhaps playing allies with it prevents it from becoming another North Korea. Although, one could argue, it already is North Korea for half the population.

These are all difficult issues, and anyone who claims to have a solution to these issues does not appreciate their complexity.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar There was never any intention of bringing Afghanistan to the same levels of prosperity as Korea and Japan, and your understanding of what happened to make them strong is not what actually happened.

Japan and Korea uplifted themselves, it had nothing to do with US investment.

Consider this: why don't we depict the WWII Japanese the same way we depict Nazi's? It's because we Never toppled their government after the Japanese surrender! The government that exists today in Japan is the same as the one that ran the show during WWII. What we did was to offer loans to the country that would be paid back with interest as reprimand for the war. The situation with Korea was similar, except we just ousted the puppet government installed by Japan post Invasion.

The war has been a drain on the resources of this country that we will receive no return for. I understand your point, but my point is that what your point is is a deliberate fiction told to the American public by government officials in order to extract funds from the citizens through taxation.

Helping Afghanistan was never on the table. You are mistaken to assume that this was the goal, either going in to the war or at any point during the war, or now.

In today's dollars, a total of about $18 billion was invested to rebuild japan, and we nuked them and fire bombed basically all there cities. Afghanistan has received about $35 billion, the overwhelming majority of which just disappeared, no doubt into shady under the table deals and the hands of child raping warlords.

Your analogy is a bad one, because it doesn't reflect what actually happened. Suppose the economic reforms backfired, and resulted in greater poverty and centralization of resources to the government. Then this would be a more accurate depiction of what happened, but still wrong. Also keep in mind that the lying happened during the campaign according to the Afghanistan papers. This country has basically turned fascist because of this series of events.

Maybe a better analogy would be something like this: A star empire builds a massive set of space habitats, then a group of rebels blows one up. The empire immediately invades their desert home world, ( ignoring the fact that most of the attackers came from a nearby independent nation that is an ally of the empire) They break a lot of things and critically damage the already non-existent infrastructure, costing both civilian and military lives. When questioned about how the war is going, the generals in charge of the campaign repeatedly say that things are going great. When violence increases, they claim they are cornering the enemy. When violence goes down, they claim their tactics are working. No matter what things are going great, but they could always use more funding. Soon the empire expends several hundred times the cost of the lost station losses more lives, until a set of documents reveal the deception, but no one cares because the government ran a series of propaganda campaigns to silence the masses.

AlofRI

I think the war in Afghanistan WAS justified. That is until Tora Bora, when Dubya sent Afghans into a cave searching for bin Laden, while the 10th Mountain Division had to wait outside twiddling their thumbs! I believe they came out with somewhat heavier pockets! Then he turned around and attacked Iraq, which was NOT justified, and pulled resources FROM Afghanistan instead of ending that legitimacy and coming home. From then on it's been a waste of money …. and lives. 

TKDB

@AlofRI

Irag was invaded because Saddam Hussein, balked at the 11 UN Resolutions, that he ignored, after the Iraqi army was driven out of Kuwait, during the first Gulf War.

During the 1st Gulf War, Saddam was given a break. (Being that the Election between George H W Bush, and Bill Clinton was getting ready to get underway, making the first Gulf war a short one.)

Now if there wasn't an Election during the time of the first Gulf War, maybe the outcome of the first Gulf War, could have had a different outcome? 

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

I am not debating the goals of the invasion. I am saying that the act of invasion should be considered on its own merit, separately from intent behind it. I have never claimed that the US invaded Afghanistan in order to uplift the country - my point was that invasion itself was a prerequisite for uplifting the country, which I find to be a worthy and realistic goal, even if it was never actually on the table.

I am not sure where you are getting your information on Japan and Korea, but Japanese and Koreans themselves strongly disagree with your interpretation. The US essentially appointed the initial Japanese government and forced the royal family to transfer all of its power to the three branches of the government, with the emperor stripped of all influence but cultural one. The investments in the Japanese economy were absolutely incredible, which caused a lot of uproar among the US voters who were wondering why their taxpayer money is being spent on rebuilding some faraway island (and no, those were not loans only, although they were at large). The subsequent Japanese economical miracle was a product of people's hard work, but that hard work could only lead to this amazing outcome with the right institutions in place, and those institutions were effectively forced on Japanese. The emperor issued a directive to comply with all reasonable requirements the US imposed on Japan, hence the transition was seamless.

It was not as clear-cut in South Korea, as the US mostly invested in its military complex. As late as in 1989 South Korea was still a military dictatorship in essence. Nonetheless, without the US involvement, there is no doubt that South Korea would by now be a part of DPRK. And Japan heavily invested in the South Korean economy once it could stand on its own, which, again, would not have happened without the US involvement.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar What do you think the point of military campaigns is exactly? If there was never any end goal, the campaign is literally a waste of time, money, and resources that could be better spent on things that actually benefit taxpayers.

The merits of starting the campaign doesn't matter, because we are talking about the present here, which is why the title reads:

"Is the war in Afghanistan justified?" not "was starting the war in Afghanistan justified?"

We have spent almost 2 decades there doing nothing because there is no end goal and never was. I mean, do you think we are going to accomplish by spending more time and resources there? We are completely over invested, even if magically the country suddenly turned friendly, how many decades would it take us to get what we spent back? We should have been out a decade ago, we should cut our losses because the longer it goes the worse it is going to get.

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

Starting the war and conducting it and its aftermath in a proper manner would lead to a very different result, than starting the war and conducting it in a lousy way. What happened was the latter - but in principle, the former also could have happened. If you are asking whether the war in Afghanistan was handled properly, then my answer is "No". But if you are asking whether the war in Afghanistan is justified, then my answer is "I do not know", or, better, "There is no single answer to this question".

You seem to be talking about the intent behind the war and handling of the war. I am talking about whether the war itself is justified, not whether the way it was handled is justified.

I can disagree with the way someone goes about losing weight, and their method might actually be working against them - but I may approve of losing weight itself. This is the distinction I am making in our discussion: you are approaching it from the former angle, and I am approaching it from the latter angle.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar Enough with this non-causal nonsense! We can't change the past and there it makes little sense talking about it in any context other than learning from mistakes. 

What matters is where we are today, and where we want to be tomorrow. I'm not asking "What was the intent here?" because we now have the information proving that there never was an intent.

I'm making a statement about what action should be taken today based on emerging information, and I think that is were the breakdown in understanding is. The angle I am approaching this from is more: "The weight loss supplements we are taking have just been show scientifically to be placebos and we aren't trying to lose weight anyways. Why are we still trying?"

If I am asking any question here, it is "Why are we still wasting resources on a meaningless war if there is no overarching plan or end goal?" and "Why are people not getting upset about how there tax dollars and US lives were wasted due to mismanagement and deliberate deception?"

MayCaesar

@Happy_Killbot

But you are asking about a war that began 18 years ago. You cannot talk about this war without talking about its past. If your question is about the US involvement in this war today, then it is a completely different discussion from the one that the title suggests.

With regards to the situation today, my position has always been the same: if you want to do something, then either go all-in in doing it, or do not do it at all. If the US government wants to do something about the situation in Afghanistan, then either it should take it seriously, send in a massive army and investment, deal the mortal blow to Taliban and rebuild the country. Or, if it is not sure it can handle it all, then it should withdraw altogether. Half-measures such as the ones that have been taking place over the last ~15 years are not going to get anywhere and are only likely to further destabilise the region.

I am not terribly worried about the tax dollars in this particular case, as it is a very small fraction of all tax money the government wastes every year. I am more concerned with the fact that 35 million people live in an impoverished war-torn region, and politicians are too worried about the next election to actually do something of substance there, or, at least, have the integrity and withdraw.

CYDdharta

MayCaesar said:

I am not terribly worried about the tax dollars in this particular case, as it is a very small fraction of all tax money the government wastes every year. I am more concerned with the fact that 35 million people live in an impoverished war-torn region, and politicians are too worried about the next election to actually do something of substance there, or, at least, have the integrity and withdraw.

Just curious, but what, if anything, do you think could be done that would be of substance?

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar How much money would you be willing to spend on maybe killing other American lives because someone told you they are trying to help another impoverished country?

Would that value change if almost two decades latter there was a negative or no impact on that country?

Now how much would you be willing to spend if it came out that most of that money wasn't going to help the country, but was ending up in the pockets of weapons manufacturers and unnamed corrupt entities, now how much would you be willing to pay? 

Right now the average American is spending about $7,500.
https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2017/09/taxes-united-states-war-iraq-afghanistan-syria/141337/

MayCaesar

@CYDdharta

Well, for example, the government could complete the ambitious highway project connecting all major cities of Afghanistan. One of the biggest problems in war-torn countries is broken infrastructure making people unable to move around, which severely impairs the entire economy. A bit more investing in that direction, rather than abandoning the project half-way through, would go a long way.

There are more drastic measures which could have been taken with a similar total spending, such as a full-on occupation and installation of a puppet government, which would not be very popular, but arguably far more effective.

Again, I am no expert and do not claim to have the best solution in mind.


@Happy_Killbot

You are asking the wrong person; I am a voluntarist, advocating for a tax-free system. However, given that the military budget is what it is, it might as well be spent on something with a chance of producing a positive outcome.

Like I said, I strongly disapprove of the way the aftermath of the invasion was handled. I am not sure why you are asking me to defend it. I was talking about the more general principle: that the war itself may be justified. It does not mean that any way this war can be carried out would lead to a positive outcome, however.

$7,500 over the period of 16 years does not seem too bad to me, by the usual standards. Americans spend far more on the disfunctional governmental healthcare system, for example, yet most people seem to want even more spending.

Happy_Killbot

@MayCaesar I'm not asking you to defend it, I'm asking you to do the opposite. I'm asking why anyone would defend it, especially now that we know that the coverage has been a deliberate series of lies.

CYDdharta

MayCaesar said:

@CYDdharta

Well, for example, the government could complete the ambitious highway project connecting all major cities of Afghanistan. One of the biggest problems in war-torn countries is broken infrastructure making people unable to move around, which severely impairs the entire economy. A bit more investing in that direction, rather than abandoning the project half-way through, would go a long way.

There are more drastic measures which could have been taken with a similar total spending, such as a full-on occupation and installation of a puppet government, which would not be very popular, but arguably far more effective.

Again, I am no expert and do not claim to have the best solution in mind.

Hmmm, highways.  They could certainly help commerce.  They could help the government move men and equipment.  But they're also indiscriminate, they could just as easily help the Taliban move men and equipment.  The real problem is that the Afghan government only controls the population centers.  The Taliban controls much of the countryside.  The Taliban may well welcome a highway project in an area they control, if they believe it will benefit them.  If they believe it will help the government and hinder the Taliban, they can easily make it impassable and/or too dangerous to use.  I'm sure if we brainstormed it, we could come up with a few things that would undoubtedly help the Afghan public, but I believe they'd only help on the margins.  I don't believe there is any way to turn Afghanistan into a functioning lawful society.