The Afghanistan War: Absurdity or Necessity?
 

Source is "A War of Absurdity" by Robert Scheer in the current Nation

I say:
1. No to more troops.
2. Withdraw the ground forces already there.
3. If this is a proxy war with Afghanistan standing in for Pakistan, conduct it with drones.

What do you say?

I think that assessment is a little short sighted. Al Qaeda may not have a strong presence there right now, but the Taliban surely does and if the Taliban regains control you can bet Al Qaeda will be flooding right back in. Of course, they're surely setting up shop elsewhere as we speak, but I don't like the prospect of letting them reclaim their home turf where they'd be able to get back up to speed far faster than they'll be able to regroup elsewhere where they won't have the level of support that the Taliban lent them.

What GD said.

I also think we need to actually find bin Laden (or concrete proof that he died).

I am completely against the Iraq war over WMDs (wait, what are we fighting over there for again?) and completely support efforts in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) to dismantle Al Queda and the Taliban and find bin Laden (is that even a goal now? Surely there are more masterminds plotting to bring more terrorist acts to America).

There's supposed to be different varieties of Taliban. Some are more partial to Al Quaeda than others but the majority seem to be very, very, very conservative Muslim followers of Wahabi.

To me, this Taliban - Al Quaeda connection is a foreign policy unknown in 2009. I wish we did know more about it. The little that I've read indicates that the majority of the Taliban do not necessarily support the tactics of Al Quaeda. On the other hand, there's a minority that seems to support them.

And other than making Afghanistan the permanent 51st State of the U.S., how would you expect "us" to keep the Taliban out of there forever?

Considering we can't even get the Taliban out of there in the first place, are you (GD and BTD and any other Afghan war supporters), suggesting even a permanent U.S. presence would keep them out of there forever?

Didn't we help implement the Taliban to begin with?

I'm more concerned with finding the masterminds behind the terrorist plots. Finding out if bin Laden is really dead.

They are never going to be completely gone but I want to make it as hard as possible for them to make any sort of comeback in the terror industry.

No, can't keep it out forever. No more than winning World War II kept Nazi's out of Germany.

I do think it is possible to establish an infrastructure that would make it very difficult for the Taliban to achieve significant power again.

Ignoring the question of Al Qaeda (and I think I've been pretty consistent that "war" against Al Qaeda is a pretty meaningless concept), having displaced the Taliban from their position of power, accepting that their return to power would be a human rights catastrophe, what responsibility do we have to do our best to prevent that happening before leaving?

As Colin Powell said it, "you break it you buy it." Regardless of how justified the initial war was, and how successfully accomplished the initial goals have been I'd argue we have a responsibility to not say "ok, Taliban, it's all yours so long as you don't let Al Qaeda come back; enjoy the complete dehumanization of half your population!"

Would a return to Afghanistant 1999 be acceptable if we were in a direct position to try and prevent it?

To me? For the most part yes, even with the recognition that any equilibrium achieved is still going to be reasonably far from what we consider acceptable for the United States, so long as there seems to be a serious native desire for it as well.

Sort of. We provided them with arms when they were fighting the Soviets. But they were around long before that.

But are we fighting for human rights or fighting against terrorism?

I have a problem with how women are treated in a lot of the Middle Eastern countries. But I have an even bigger issue with us trying to implement our system of leadership all over the world (without being asked to help).

Just because it's right for us, and how we think it's how the world should work doesn't mean it's right for the world and it's not our place to go "oh, we don't like how you treat your [demographic] so we're going to go to war with you until you change your ways.

The goals of this war (and Iraq) have been lost. They both need to be redefined, and worked towards. Regardless, I don't think we should be pulling out of either place without some sort of stable government in place.

I don't know that I am a supporter. My point was more that the glib assessment of, 'Well, there's no Al Qaeda there NOW, mission accomplished!" is shortsighted and disingenuous. It's not a fair assessment of the risks of leaving. I might still support a path that has us leaving shortly, but not because I think we've solved the threat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

As the discussion turns away from exacting justice for the crime of 9/11 and more towards how to clean up the aftermath of justice, and therefore turns more towards the human rights question, I fell that puts it more into a NATO/UN scope. I have little confidence that the international community will step up to the plate on that, but I think the US position should be that the responsibility lies there. There will be the obvious pushback of, "Umm, but you created the mess, why should we clean it up," but I think the US needs to frame it as, "We legitimately displaced a human rights-violating regime, it's the international community's place to ensure a successful rebuild that doesn't return to the abusers we dislodged." A tough sell but it makes more sense that us playing nation-builders.