RE: Can someone explain to me why the afghan war is unjust?
January 2, 2015 at 10:41 am
(This post was last modified: January 2, 2015 at 10:43 am by Faith No More.)
(January 2, 2015 at 6:58 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
We didn't have an exit strategy because there was no real exit strategy that could ever be formulated. War isn't static. It's fluid, always changing, always unpredictable. There was only one real certainty; Osama had to die, and so did all of his supporters, allies, and friends.
Problem was, the POTUS at the time is a monstrously selfish, greedy, arrogant worm with a cabinet of equally selfish, greedy, arrogant worms surrounding him, so rather than commit to the war in Afghanistan, he went for his REAL goals in Iraq. But, strip away all that? The war in Afghanistan was very well-justified. Is Afghanistan a perfectly safe haven? No. Is it better for our interference? It's very shades-of-grey there, but overall, I'm willing to say that, yes, it's better. I don't live there, though, so I can't say that conclusively or even with much conviction. I know the Taliban has been Talibanned from most of the civilized areas of the country, and I know they were a cancerous infection on the ass of humanity that desperately needed surgical removal, and I know that at least women there can go to school, business can flourish (yes yes yes I know, the poppy trade, blah blah blah, but hey, that's capitalism and the free market for you; there's a demand, and they saw an opportunity to be the supply, so I can't really fault them for that), and even if Karzai is a thug, at least the basis of election by the people is there. So, at least they now have better prospects for self-governance and self-determination, and I honestly hope that in the not-too-far-future I get to see Afghanistan become as influential as any European nation at the least, with a quality-of-life index to match (but not a QoL to match the US; I'm hoping for good things for them, after all) and a government as populist, as well.
Given how things were beforehand, and the prospects they had before we kicked the taliban and the other sweater-monkey groups out of the cities and more-populated areas of Afghanistan, I'm comfortable with stating the war in Afghanistan, while as ugly as war will always be and with the usual accompaniment of blood and tears to go with it, it was still just, and I hope that, in the long run, it will turn out to be worth it. Fuck knows the Afghanis deserve some peace, quiet, stability, and prosperity for once...
Getting into a war that does not have an exit strategy is a stupid move. You may see it as an improvement over the last situation, but as we can see now in Iraq, the U.S. has a terrible history when it comes to destabalizing regions and putting someone of their choosing in power. In fact, if by some miracle this whole thing turns out to be a success(how replacing a corrupt power structure with another corrupt one could ever be considered a success, I don't know), it will be out of luck as opposed to careful planning and proper execution, and any war entered into so recklessly with such callous disregard for the nuances of the culture and regional power structure is by very definition unjust.
Let's face it. We may have weakened the Taliban, but what we really did is create a power vacuum. And as much as we try to put in a functioning government, the true power still lies with the Afghani drug lords and their tribes. We've just continued the tried and true American tradition of replacing one corrupt organization with another that makes us feel a little bit better about ourselves. That's complete selfishness under the guise of helping the people that really just creates other problems for them. "Just" is nowhere to be found.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell