Should the US Withdraw from Afghanistan?

Because we invaded it and we're(among others) are the reason the country has been a hell hole for the past 30 years. Afghanistan is not some stone age backwater, before the US, Soviets, ect started funding and arming revolutions and militant groups Afghanistan had a lot of hope, and Kabul was just like any other city with hospitals, parks, universities, music stores, women in skirts, an industrial base, ect
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=0,1

The Afghan army can't be trained because the endemic corruption in it, Afghanis are people, they have families, the government often doesn't pay them. However various warlords will pay them to protect poppy fields, look the other way, not make death threats on them, ect. It again goes back to our lack of ability to control a country we invaded. Not to mention the fact we also pay these various warlords, then we wonder why the Afghani army has no sense of loyalty to the government when the warlords we pay are paying the soldiers.

 

Mistakes were made and that is regrettable. We can only do what is best from today forward, we can't change the past. The ferocity and tenacity with which they have fought in the past tells me that they are more than capable of having their own army and defending themselves. So, let's get the hell out of the way and let them run their own lives and affairs of state.

And wouldn't that corruption be by Afghanis? Again, that's not our problem. We shouldn't be spending our nation's money and lives because they refuse to deal with their own corrupt people.

Isn't that government made of Afghanis?

aren't these various warlords also Afghanis?

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The problems you attribute to Afghanistan are the same problems we have here in the U.S. Would this justify China's occupation of the U.S. in order to solve our corruption and crime?

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You can in no way compare Afghanistan's problems to the United States, it's like saying someone who stole a bag of chips from the gas station and someone who stole 43 cars both have the same stealing problem. The United States is a 1st world country with well developed infrastructure, functioning government and sans civil war for the past 145 years. Afghanistan is a third world nation with a government that barely functions that has been at constant war for 35 years with absolutely no infrastructure and has been used as a proxy by first world nations such as the U.S.

Literally almost all of Afghanistan's problems has it original causes from actions done by the United States and Soviet Union. You can't expect a country to get back on its feet and go "well fuck them they obviously don't care" when the country has spent the past 35 years, literally the entire lives of most of the people living there currently in civil war. Most Afghanis are still living in areas that could be classified as stateless still. Afghans are normal people, they're not going to pick up guns and go on a noble crusade to restore government power in their area, they're going to support whoever makes their area the safest, be it the government or warlords.

Considering the fact kids are finally having schools to go to, and Kabul is beginning to look like an actual city again, and Afghans support a foreign occupation force in their country, I'd say the Afghans do care.

 

If you take away the crime attributed to the war, I would have to say you're right; Crime in Afghanistan would be so far less per capita there would be no comparison. I don't see how this helps your argument, though.

Our infrastructure is falling apart, our government certainly isn't working well, and one could say we are on the verge of civil war; and the major reason all of these things continue to get worse is due to the wars we have raging in the Middle East. If this insanity continues, it is likely to bring about an end to our own nation.

As you stated yourself these problems are the result of wars, so how is continuing to make war going to solve these problems?

Yes, by doing the same thing we are currently doing, making war.

I can't see them getting back on their feet under the current conditions.

True, and after 8 years of war, so how is more war going to make things better?

Not as long as they have us to do it for them.

And how many innocent Afghanis have we killed compared to the warlords?

Are you saying that children did not go to school in Afghanistan before we invaded? I'm sure it was true for some areas, but it still is, after 8 years of war.


We simply do not have the resources to continue either of these wars, let alone both, and our own security is now severely compromised. Our military force is tattered and shell shocked and the equipment that used to be in National Guard units to protect our land is now sitting in the Middle East, along with many of the National Guard units themselves.

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Sarcasm right?

America is far from collapsing and again, comparing America's problems to any third world nation's is impossible. We're not on the brink of actual civil war, our government functions and exerts authority and provides services. America's problems aren't because of Afghanistan, America has deep seated ideological issues that are causing our problems along with an economic base propped up by an industrial-military complex. Even if we weren't in Afghanistan, the pentagon budget would be no smaller nor our economy any different.

Make war to end war, Afghanistan isn't going to become some peaceful place just because we leave. It will become Afghanistan 1992 version 2.0

Yes, so we leave troops there to keep an serious insurgency from becoming full scale civil war again.

The evidence points the other way, as much as a hell hole Afghanistan is, more people are going to school, have access to electricity and water, health care facilities and ect than before.

How is withdrawing going to make things better? That is the topic at hand.

Tell that to the Balkans, Iraq, East Timor, and all the other places that needed international troops to get back on their feet.

Tens if not hundreds of thousands. Yet they still support us being there there as they know what alternative is.

It still is, but school building has been among the most heavily funded aid mission since the war began, not to mention pre-war in most of the country a whole gender off the bat was forbidden to go to school.

We don't have the resources, but that's our problem now. We shouldn't start things we're not willing to finish when it gets tough. How does anyone benefit from US troops withdrawing from Afghanistan? Let's look at the losers:

Afghanistan
-Country falls into raging civil war again
-Hundreds of thousands of more people die
-All projects built since toppling of Taliban most likely to be destroyed

America
-Tens of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid and infrastructure funds spent completely in vain, Afghanistan at best goes into a state of full civil war where everything is destroyed, and at worst has a civil war which is ended with another version of the taliban taking control of most of the country
- Either way of what happens, Afghanistan once again becomes a safe haven for Islamists.
-At very worst, Afghanistan becomes so bad it destabilizes Pakistan to the point of civil war.

 

I think someone needs to sit Bin Laden down, and have themselves an intervention. George Bush can tell him how much he still cares, and that when he blew up the twin towers Bin never even thanked him- and that it was hurtful.

 

Bin Laden just needs to smoke a joint and calm down already.

 

Moody. A right that comes with old age.

I agree that WE have made progress there, but it's the Afghanis who need to make progress. We can build new cities and homes for everyone, but that isn't going to solve their social problems, only they can do that.

Here is what I am amenable to:

• A slow withdrawal over a year's time.
• building permanent "boot camps" that our military can staff for continued training of the Afghan Army and police forces.
• A very small number of "advisers" to be installed in each unit of the Afghan Army to be reduced each year for maybe 3 or 4 years.
• Military protection for civilian aid groups.
• Continued drone attacks in and around Waziristan.
• An understanding with the Afghanistan government that this continued help is dependent on them getting their act together.
• A contract with the U.S. government for the purchase rights to a considerable % of natural resource exports, especially lithium.

 

shit i wish they would get our people the hell outta there,but I think if they do then all that heroin and shit that is rampant tthere now will be 10 times more and it wil lbe all over,not just there and all over Rurope,,some of that afghan heroin is smuggled over here to the USA i here from some soldiers saying they know a guy who for $200-300 can buy enough pure afghan heroin that when mailed here sells for $1000's of dollars...like $50 of the pure powder there would end up selling for $200-400 here even without any cut much at all, its just so cheap there ,you could sell $50 off it from thee here uncut and would be a few grams or near that,,from the words of people who hav ebeen over there and know a few people who sent some back,altho they did not like to mention that a few of or guys had done that shit,,but they wanted to earn a bit of money for putting there ass in harms way 24/7 and $50 or $100 or so sent here would make theem $500 or more so i can't blam ethem really and it's only a few doing that ,, but the longer we stay in that damn country the more criminals will show up in our military or turn into criminals just becaus eit would be so damn easy to make a bunch of cash for a small amount of cash and nobody including the USA is destroying the opium poppys or not enough to make a dent in the supply..man hope our people don't end up messed up and get hooked after being over too lon gand under all the damn stress,,i would not blame a soldier for buying a$10 amount of that stuff while off duty and getting a sniff to get really high for a long time,,$10 of that pure stuff would be enough to last them days straight...bad situation could come outta all this afghani opium heroin business during a war..

 

Financially speaking that is reasonable.
But can you imagine the headlines: "Proof War WAS for oil"

 

Our name is already Mudd, so it couldn't hurt much.

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should get out so the mess doesn't get bigger.. or they'll need a bigger mop

 

Oh, it could. We are all fighting to make our argument more valid.

 

In my opinion the US have a greater military responsibility in Northern Irland and in Wales, where the socio-political situation over ther is far more desperate.

 

Wales?

 

what's that in aid of? since the irish referendum and people actually started speaking out against the IRA in NI their socio-political situation has been the most stable for 120 years ..... and plaid cymru seem to have been very quiet since the last general election in the UK

i was hoping rak would explain why he thinks wales and northern ireland need US military presence.... i see no reason for your sarcasm

 

That was what I was hoping for too. I thought you thought it was a daft thing to say. Obviously not.