“WHY IS THE UNITED STATES EVEN PRESENT IN AFGHANISTAN?”
(note: numbers and figures quoted or stated here are naturally due to change after this 07-12-2010 edit)
After all the problems in Iraq and the seeming futility sensed there, it isn’t questionable why we would question our presence in another country fighting the Al-Qaida supported Taliban.
The problem with the American people is that, if they don’t like something, they are more readily agreeable with anti-government propaganda than they are in actually in expending the energy to research an easily researchable topic to find the answers. Also, as the American people are so famous for their interest waning, just like a TV series, they tire easily of the same old news, ignoring the simple facts that fighting for democracy in other countries to free a people that don’t have paved streets, schools, proper medical care, sewage departments, trash service or anything else we are so spoiled and selfishly use to having, is never and was never promised to be a quick, easy, expedited procedure.
We forget or are either too lazy to research just exactly what our country had to go through to procure and produce those services for us and our families. We rooted and cheered as our country paid retribution upon or enemies, then all too quickly became lazy of the same old news and efforts and turned our opinions via media hype and popularity to scorn and scrutinize our Nation’s efforts elsewhere, using any excuse presented by opposition parties to chastise our leaders for allowing our troops to perish overseas in what we feel is an issue that does not affect us at home, nor is worthy of our interests.
With the use of the Internet so easily available to us now in our generational technologies, we can’t blame other sources for our ignorance. Although we have to sift and sort the cypher through the multitude of bases for fraudulent, misleading and misinformation hoop-la, we should be intelligent enough as mature adults to at least take the time and “look” through the “proposed” facts and decipher what is likely to be real or fantasy created to support the support or anti-support groups. Take into account that the US is going to support their own actions and of course the anti-government groups will support their own viewpoints or rather accusations (while often a majority of these should be viewed in a truer light in their truer form as anti-American groups hidden under the guise of names depicting government watch groups for a better America).
We have to remember that many of these self proclaimed government watch groups are sponsored and driven by people who pay homage to the same master as many media groups do, the public's willingness to swallow what they preach. We also have to remember that rather than "watch" and try to keep our government from being run by the powers that be, and lose the power for the people to run their government, they would rather scrutinize, protest and harass government action...it sells papers, so to speak. They tend to play a tune that people will subscribe to, the same people who watch soaps religiously or listen to similar radio talk show hosts that continuously condemn the government. They are in allegiance to that type of dirt spreading, mud throwing, conspiracy based theories that are constantly to a negative, but which far to many people are "addicted" to, alienating good and productive growth in our nation. Much likened to the opposition that the Republican Party now throws towards the Democratic administration in office, just for the sake of gaining controlling power. They are more interested in being able to adulterate the facts in order to seemingly preach patriotism to their cause, to be able to fool the people into thinking that "their cause and way" is what needs to be in power not the oppositions, or that they possess the only interest in the power of the voice of the people. IN the process, they are not concerned in the least that they lose the original ideal for the people themselves to gain a solid footing so that they themselves can be the voice of the Nation, and empower "themselves" to rightly express patriotism to a Nation they can be proud of.
Look at the willingness of the people and the opposition parties to now claim that we are merely more interested in preparing to leave Iraq, just because the government has decided that Afghanistan draws more interest politically and financially. It is far easier to complain and get the people to gripe and whine than it is to admit that our goals have been reached in Iraq, just as the proposed goals for Afghanistan are looming ahead of us. Iraq has finally developed a self-run government, police force, and military that can sustain itself to a degree of survival against opposing forces and their enemies. They are now capable of empowering themselves and the people to continue on their road to recovery and we can now look forward to troops coming home after the long vigil or redeployment to areas in dire need of experienced members of our armed forces in the continuing saga of setting a democratic foothold in the world for people who are too weak to help themselves towards freedom of oppressive government, and strengthening our resolve in tactically important areas against enemies of the world and the US, such as against Iran.
Although we will always need oversight groups to keep an eye on politicians as they run our country, we can often find that the overzealous accusations of these government watch groups can stifle and sometimes cripple “honest” and “genuine” efforts by our leaders to induce legitimate legislation and change to our country.
It’s difficult of course but not impossible to make reliable decisions towards our opinions on the issues at hand, but far easier now to be able to find point-counterpoint scenarios where we ourselves can weigh the facts, or fictional facts whichever they may be, and decide what we wish to believe to be nearer the truth, without having to fall prey to the sources which wish us to believe in only one aspect of the debates, and only wish to support their own selfish visions of power in our country.
Many claim that we are in both countries merely for their oil, although Afghanistan isn’t rich in oil (and Iraq is the third largest deposit of the same). However with the new found discovery of the rich mineral deposits in Afghanistan (the geologial reports having been founded nearly a decade ago), it may very likely dwarf the riches of Iraq’s oil industry as a national resource, estimated at a trillion dollar prospective industry per year, given time to begin producing minerals through foreign corporations (China has already vied for their mineral rights to begin mass mining). If this is so, if this is true, then only a fool would refuse to understand why the growth of their nation needs to be directed by a legitimate government and not one based in fanatical fundamentalist influence, terrorizing the world with their new found wealth at power.
Others are of the opinion that we are there for a lost cause of promoting democracy in a third world country once more, for a people that are too poor minded and undereducated to realize the vision for freedom in the first place, or even care about bettering themselves in their own country.
If our so-called "concerned citizens" would do their homework, rather than taking a self-centered path of glorification just to feel important, they would research and find out that one of the problems with gaining peace in these regions is that originally the history of the Taliban is a two-sided page. While waring against Russia, we supported the Taliban as an opposing force towards communistic control, empowering them with weapons and financing. Yet after the 80's and mid-80's the Taliban split into two factions, more or less waring amongst themselves, and of those two factions, the Northern Alliance and the opposing Southern alliance, the Northern one gained more power and wealth than did the southern one. The point being? Now, if any form of a peace talk could be opened, although highly unlikely that we could resolve the issues at hand and get them to allow the people to vote in and create a free government, even if we came to terms with the most powerful faction, the Northern Alliance, then the Southern Alliance would come back just as strong against the US as an enemy, vying to keep a Holy War prominent for their cause.
This alone should simplify any reasoning on why we need to disable and deconstruct the power of the Taliban, realizing we will never totally "destroy" the Taliban forces "en toto" , any more than we could totally dissolve and eradicate "white militant supremest groups" within the United States. We can dis-empower them, we can monitor them, we can weaken them to having a lesser influence and affect. The goal of the United States is just as it is in Iraq, empowering the people of Afghanistan to keep them at bay when they are empowered to have their own government and take back their country for their own, disallowing any form of a "group" from running ramshackle over them as would a extortionist syndicate. It is a hard fought for with a high price by any definition effort, that we have succeeded victoriously in attaining, and we do not need nor will give heed to the two-faced ill-advised, ignorance based complainers who dare call themselves Americans.
Going into Afghanistan was about two things: destroying Al Qaeda’s command structure (and killing as many of them as we could), and driving the Taliban out of power (and killing as many of them as we could too in the process). War and combat is not about playing a patty-cake chess game of troops and power. It is simply about defeating the enemy, and killing those who fight for the enemy is part of war and winning and success and attaining peace so that we can retire from war while gaining victory over the enemy. The message was clear: if you mess with the US, we will screw you over far worse than you can imagine. And if you give aid and comfort and shelter to those who screw with us, you better sleep with one eye open.
Libya, among others, got that last message.
Iraq was about popping a long-standing, festering pimple on the backside of humanity.
It had additional benefits of setting up a sizable Allied force right in the heart of the morons that wish to have us as an enemy. The advantages: quick response, and the “flypaper” effect. Get near them so we can fight them.
Also, a second decisive victory is in removing another adulterated misuse of Muslim tyranny falsely using a religion and a religious people to declare an Islamic Holy War, ensuring that our response in Afghanistan couldn’t be dismissed as luck, a fluke, or an aberration.
It also put US forces on three sides of Iran.
The point of working to ensure a stable regime in Afghanistan in our wake is to keep these morons from taking power again, and starting the whole mess all over again, allowing them to come into complete control and power in a developing nation that will give “them” the wealth and power to wage war and chaos in a much more emphasized fashion.
No, not guaranteed to work. Again as before, this is never guaranteed but hard fought for and with a price…but there any never ever any guarantees. This is a “trial by fire” and “change strategy as we go” process in completely uncharted territory.
For all the lazy, selfish, self-centered "arm chair sit on your ass" Americans that think it is patriotic and justified to change opinions like swatting flies, we as truer Americans have this to say and tell you: you are not just sometimes, but more often than not and generally most of the time, far more dangerous and much more an enemy from within our own borders and boundaries, than self-declared more genuine dishonorable enemies who declare war on the world and commit acts of terrorism against not only the US but undeniably against other countries and nations of the world. You are far more a threat to the growth, productiveness, honor and advancement of our nation as a people, with your two-sided, backward ways of being two-faced and self serving, than any fanatical cleric of Islam proclaiming an open Holy War and influencing a stupefied, uneducated populace of poor people into brutal bloodthirsty actions, and give truth to the generalized opinion by some nations that the American people are weak and selfish.
I'm sorry, but many times they are just downright, right.