This essay was published in December of 2009. I had read multiple articles regarding the state of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars and I wrote about them in this post. Unfortunately, the post wasn’t very well researched.
Highly incorrect and mistaken in multiple parts, I preserve it here for historical purposes. I ask that you not take this too heavily in consideration. I keep it as a testament and reminder to myself, and also as a public way of acknowledging my mistake.
For more information, read the responses left by S and the reply by me.
This essay is preserved in full below:
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Note: This writing is experimental and not of my normal writing nature. It discusses a controversial topic.
President Barack Obama recently announced he was increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, adding more than 30,000 troops in order to “stabilize” the situation in Afghanistan. Shortly after, Obama’s rating dipped below fifty percent, according to CNN.
Perhaps it is this endless war that dragged us into the economic disaster. The years spent fighting the Mid-East wars will be for nothing if we pull out, so our only hope is to pour more lives, more money, and more time to feed this beast.
Are these wars still pertinent to the September 11, 2001, attack on American soil, or have they funneled out of control, creating an endless war very similar to the Soviet’s presence in Afghanistan back in the 1980s? Truth be evident, these wars aren’t about 9/11 anymore.
The original aim of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was for President Bush (43rd President) to find “weapons of mass destruction) after the attacks on the World Trade Center happened. The total casualties for this war have gone over 1.3 million deaths, some say.
But perhaps is the true reason of bin Laden’s misdeeds to derail the United States government, shame the United States, and make us weak? Perhaps this is so. In the beginning of the war the US and UN troops acted quickly. It is possible that bin Laden was disappointed.
Then came the aftermath: al Qaeda, the Taliban: so many terrorist groups. The US has to send more and more soldiers in to wrap up what they’ve done so far, and doing this only causes even more money to go down the drain, even more lives to be lost.
This war never should have been fought. We should have moved in and then moved out. It shouldn’t have taken this long. But it has. And whether bin Laden is alive or not, chances are this war has turned out better than he ever thought.
I don’t like wars. So many wars start out without point. The Mid-East wars are wars that started out with a point, but ended up without one. What is being done is good, but it has taken too long and has taken too large of a toll.
5 Comments
I encourage you to write more controversial content, because it sparks comment discussion, and this is the internet, who cares if it’s controversial?
Sorry I’m so late reading this but I couldn’t resist commenting.
Let’s go over this point by point.
You are juxtaposing two completely unrelated issues. At the time of this writing, Obama’s approval ratings had been going down for some time. Unless you have some concrete evidence that these two events are related, this sentence was unnecessary at best and misleading at worst.
How exactly did the war drag us into economic disaster? The economic disaster was caused by a myriad of items, including a sudden collapse in the house market bursting a bubble based on the asssumption of ever-rising housing prices; deregulation on the part of the Bush Administration; the freezing of the credit markets, and lack of rapid action that allowed Goldman Sachs to fail, an event that was a main instigator of the whole mess.
So how were the two events even remotely related? I’m guessing that the second sentence is attempting to justify the first, although this is not clear due to the shifting tenses, but your answer makes no sense. The economic crisis was not caused by government debt.
The war in Afghanistan has a very clear goal: to disrupt the Taliban and Al Qaeda. See this.
Get your history right. The Afghanistan war’s purpose was to, as I stated before, to disrupt Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. The aim of the Iraq war was to find WMD’s. You are lumping two unrelated wars together despite vast differences in those wars’ goals. Do you get your news from Fox by any chance?
Sentence 1 is speculative, nonsensical, and not backed by any evidence. Sentence 2 is redundant. Sentence 3 is irrelevant and partially inaccurate; the Afghanistan war was fought by United States and NATO forces, not the UN. Sentence 4 is speculative, and irrelevant, and not backed by evidence.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban existed waaaaaaaaay before we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Please get your facts right.
And what does the second sentence mean? Who is forcing the US to send more and more soldiers? What does “to wrap up what they’ve done so far” mean? How does the third sentence relate to the rest of the essay?
Sentences 1 and 2 directly contradict each other. And how exactly do you think we should have moved in and then moved out? In Afghanistan, the goal was to disrupt the Taliban and al Qaeda. We still have not achieved this goal. In Iraq, we began the war by toppling the Iraqi government. Leaving Iraq then would have created a power vacuum similar to the vacuum formed by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, a vacuum that allowed the Taliban to rise to power.
You make a good point in the last sentence of the paragraph, though.
What do you mean; did the cookie monster come in the middle of the night and steal the “point” of the Middle Eastern wars? And your last sentence contradicts nearly everything else you stated in the essay.
In general, I think you are under two main misconceptions. First, that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are somehow united in purpose when they are in reality wholly separate. Second, that long wars are inherently futile.
Brandon, based on your other writings you seem to be an immensely talented writer. But this essay does not show off your abilities.
[edit by Brandon] The content of this comment was not edited in any form – I welcome criticism to my writings and seek feedback to them. I’m currently on leave but a well formulated reply should come shortly.
@S:
It’s time to admit defeat. I know when to stop arguing, and for this argument it’s before the battle has even begun.
First off, I’d like to thank you for the incredibly articulated comment. I didn’t modify it in any form. When I first saw the comment pop into my inbox, my first thought was that it had to be spam. It was long, and it included quotes, but then I looked at the actual content.
In general, I’m sure I’m not the only one to have been blinded by the misconceptions of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars being somehow “united in purpose”. I also don’t know what I was thinking when I linked terrorism to the economic crisis.
That being said, however, I have a general feeling for wars – either don’t happen, or happen fast. Generally speaking, I do suppose this is something the Afghanistan War has failed at. And although we might have declared a victory in Iraq, in terms of location Afghanistan and Iraq are only separated by Iran – itself not very stable – and therefore, our job in these countries is not done yet.
But why should we have a job in the first place in these countries? That was what I was wondering when I wrote this essay (realistically, more of a rant). I have gotten many of my facts wrong – I admit, as this wasn’t a very well-researched essay.
Correct me if I’m wrong, please.
Thank you for your kind words.
As I previously stated, the Afghanistan war’s goal was to disrupt the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and bin Laden. Pretty much everyone — Democrats and Republicans, nations throughout the world – supported the American in this mission. You would be hard-pressed to any democratic country who disagreed with the premise of the Afghanistan war.
The problem was, three years later, we got distracted. Instead of devoting necessary resourced to Afghanistan to complete our goals there, President Bush diverted our national attention to focus on the Iraq war.
Bush said we had to invade because Iraq possess WMD’s and supported al Qaeda, the first claim based on small amounts of faulty intelligence, and the second claim that was just made up. Bush then made an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein: show your WMD’s or we attack. Lacking WMD’s, Saddam Hussein couldn’t show the Americans his weapons, so America, followed by a couple of other countries, attacked.
As you know, even though President Bush declared mission accomplished, we still had not succeeded, because by toppling the Saddam Hussein’s regime, we created a power vacuum, igniting conflict between Sunnis and Shias who both wanted power.
Now, invading a country based on faulty intelligence is always bad, but it was particularly bad in this case. Iraq’s strength prevented other countries, namely Iran, from becoming too powerful, a balance on the political scale, if you will. This is one of the main reasons why, in the past five years or so, Iran has become such a pain in the butt. It used to be that no one dared to do anything too extreme in the Middle East out of fear of Iraq’s reprisal. But with Iraq gone, Iran was free to do what it wished, instigating the buildup in Iran’s nuclear weapon program.
But I digress. It is only recently, under the Obama administration, that America has returned focus to where it belonged, Afghanistan. One of the reasons the Afghanistan war has taken so long is because for about five years, the Bush forgot about it. He didn’t give American forces in Afghanistan enough resources to get the job done. And because of the lack of results, other countries’ pulled out of Afghanistan, making the job even harder for America.
I think that answers most of your comment. However I am confused by this statement:
Iran is entirely separate from both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We’re in Afghanistan to [finally] complete our mission there, and we are in Iraq to set up a new self-sustaining democratic government And because we destroyed Iraq’s previous government, we have a duty to help set up this one. Iran has nothing to do with it.
@S:
You’re right – Iran is separate from both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Iran is, however, as you mentioned in your comment, under a “free reign”, so to say, because of the fall of Iraq. Because of this, the US has a whole bunch of problems with Iran’s nuclear programs, etc. The statement was meant to say that the US may have problems with Iran in the future.