Can someone explain to me why the afghan war is unjust?

[Heywood]

It's unjust because we didn't conduct it with the proper focus and dedication needed to shoulder the responsibility that comes with taking over a country. Instead we messed it around like a high handed Imperial adventurist with many bigger fishes to fry, and after screwing with them for 14 years left them ready to descend back into the same radicalized talibanized mess as before.

Afghans who died as result of our intervention, and couldn't give a rat's ass about OBL, therefore died for nothing.

So if it was executed differently it would have been justified???.....[sarcasm]that makes a whole lot of sense[/sarcasm].

---

The Afghans supported AQ, and refused to stop doing so after 9/11.

You lay down with dogs, you're gonna get fleas.

So, a guy shoots up a bank and then hides in an apartment building. Are you okay with dropping a 1000 pound bomb on the building and killing everyone in there because of him?

And what about the damage we inflicted on ourselves?

Are the Taliban miserable muslim scumbags? Yes. So are the bastards we support.

Except we did more than that. We built roads and schools and cell phone towers. The afghans today have it much better than the afghans of 14 years ago.

[Faith No More]

The conspiracy theory states that the US armed the Taliban way back in the 70's To fight the Soviets over that cold war thing.
It worked, right?

It's not conspiracy theory. It's known fact, and it was because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

And guess who was one of those "freedom fighters" we armed to fight the Soviets? Osama Bin Laden. That's because one of the biggest travesties of our Middle East adventures is that we do so without even the slightest smidgen of foresight and a complete disrespect for the complexity of the region.

Americans need to realize that they just can't understand the world outside of their little bubbles well enough to just go meddling in any place they feel like. There are repercussions for our actions, but we're too damn stupid to see them and remember.

Of course, as long as we have a large group of me-me-me! Republicans in power, we'll continue the same narcissistic and moronic foreign policy.

[Manowar]

I always believed that we should stay within our borders not get involved in other countries's problems, If we did that there would be a lot less terrorists trying to attack us, not losing all that money in worthless wars. We could afford to give everyone in this country health care, we would not have Homeland security spending and have more freedom, now it seems more and more freedoms taken away, so I say no more wars. politicians, especially Republicans never want to do that.

manowar

[Faith No More]

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.

[abaris]

And guess who was one of those "freedom fighters" we armed to fight the Soviets? Osama Bin Laden. That's because one of the biggest travesties of our Middle East adventures is that we do so without even the slightest smidgen of foresight and a complete disrespect for the complexity of the region.

You said it yourself in your second paragraph, respect is certainly an issue, but the much bigger issue is ignorance. They didn't even know what awaited them.

[Faith No More]

And guess who was one of those "freedom fighters" we armed to fight the Soviets? Osama Bin Laden. That's because one of the biggest travesties of our Middle East adventures is that we do so without even the slightest smidgen of foresight and a complete disrespect for the complexity of the region.

You said it yourself in your second paragraph, respect is certainly an issue, but the much bigger issue is ignorance. They didn't even know what awaited them.

Yeah, I was implying that the ignorance was a part of and a result of the disrespect. At least, that's how it sounded in my head.

[abaris]

Yeah, I was implying that the ignorance was part of and a result of the disrespect, at least that's how it sounded in my head.

You know, more than a decade ago, I watched an interview with the CIA resident being stationed in Pakistan at the times of the Soviet invasion. He was asked about the support the US gave to the insurgency and the first words of his reply were: "As a christian, I don't understand these people."

Really, that's the best guy they had for sending into that region? I guess this one sentence says about all about willful and disrespectful ignorance.

[Anomalocaris]

So if it was executed differently it would have been justified???.....[sarcasm]that makes a whole lot of sense[/sarcasm].

[contempt for you and yours]If we had gone in with the unshakeable determination to successfully execute it differently then it would have been justified.[/contempt for you and yours]

[Faith No More]

You know, more than a decade ago, I watched an interview with the CIA resident being stationed in Pakistan at the times of the Soviet invasion. He was asked about the support the US gave to the insurgency and the first words of his reply were: "As a christian, I don't understand these people."

Really, that's the best guy they had for sending into that region? I guess this one sentence says about all about willful and disrespectful ignorance.

That's a poster example of our foreign policy. We never approach any culture with respect. Rather than put someone well-versed in Middle East culture and relations we just pop in and are like, "Have some 'Murica, bitches!"

[Minimalist]

My personal feeling is that almost all war is advoidable and utterly pointless, and that the term "just" is pretty meaningless in terms of a war. If every time someone does something to you, your first response is to retaliate with force, then society would collapse. It also doesn't fit in to the "love thy neighbour" liberal Jesus philsophy. Not that right wing Americans would accept this, as they probably think that Jesus would have shot first and asked questions later.

We are utterly guilty of what Thucydides was talking about.

"It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disasters to discuss the matter."