Afghanistan 2001-2014

MANUTD99

How do you think the outcome of this campaign will be held in world politics and in history? Is it a successful campaign, is it justified ?is it a failure and has it been warranted?

Does the outcomes of this war have a positive or negative outcome on society and in the world?

From my understanding troops will be out by 2014 and giving control to ANA.

After 9.11 coalition forces spearheaded attacks on Afghan and then decided to focus on Iraq. In the interim the Taliban re grouped and turned into a formidable force.

After a decade plus of fighting and endless lives lost this campaign seems (for me ) one of the most pointless and tragic conflicts in recent times.

I'm not sure what has been won and gained or lost and never had

c-90

al quieda lost a safehaven (temporarily).

afghans now have a choice between democracy or shiara law.

the taliban no longer rule with impunity.

there are more reasons on why it was a success but its late and i just couldnt ignore the ignorance towards these achievments due to the lives lost to attain them.

MANUTD99

c-90 wrote: »

al quieda lost a safehaven (temporarily).

afghans now have a choice between democracy or shiara law.

the taliban no longer rule with impunity.

there are more reasons on why it was a success but its late and i just couldnt ignore the ignorance towards these achievments due to the lives lost to attain them.

Sharia will remain in place in Afghanistan for sure. Look at Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries in the middle east,ally to the west and Sharia Law even dominates over the Royal Family.

Al Qaeda, have been stopped temporally in this particular country but their strengths have grown massively since Afghan began in other countries. For example since Gaddafi was overthrown Al Qaeda have major millita's now in Libya. They are also pretty strong in other parts of the middle east

Interesting recent documentary from a journalist called Ben Anderson title "Mission Accomplished?. Secrets of Helmand"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCizsZUKTjk

Chuck Stone

c-90 wrote: »

there are more reasons on why it was a success but its late and i just couldnt ignore the ignorance towards these achievments due to the lives lost to attain them.

Success? In what alternate reality is the Afghan adventure a success? It's been an unmitigated failure and was a half-arsed job from the start.

The total value of American reconstruction aid to Afghanistan in the fiscal 2002 budget that the Congress approved amounted to $942.1 million. That was probably $500 million short of what was needed that year, but analysts might have argued that the country could not absorb more money at that time. The initial fiscal 2003 request, however, totaled just $151 million, with foreign military financing reduced to a laughable $1 million.

Bill Taylor, who was coordinating assistance to Afghanistan for the State Department, was outraged. He made his views clear in an unclassified e-mail distributed widely throughout the government: "Our request for FY 03 is $151 million. This is not serious. ... FMF goes from $57 million to $1 million? On this we train the ANA [Afghan National Army] next year?. . . [the] FY 03 OHDACA [overseas humanitarian, disaster, and civic aid-a DOD program] request of $12 million had been reduced to $6 million ... can this be right? ... Zal [Khalilzad] is here and I just showed him the chart[listing the FY 03 request]. His response was the right one: `You're not serious.'"

foreignpolicy.com

goldie fish

It's been a failed state since the 19th century if not before. The key however was to stop the rot spreading and destabilising neighbouring states. Pakistan for example, where AQ seem to have moved.

c-90

what were you expecting in afghanistan?

for nato to go in and set up a modern democratic country with plenty of resources and rainbows.

look at the swinging hole it was and how much of a threat to the western world it was in 2001, look at the freedom and choices its citizens had, the education, amenities, the rights.

look at it now and tell me which era you'd prefer to live in. it may not be a place youd head off for a week with the lads but its not the mess it was.

and yes its cost alot, yes there has been a bloody, slow and vicious counter insurgency. but considering the real "objective" of the war in afghanistan was to bring take the war away from american soil and back to the terrorists that caused the attacks, how can you deny that success.


the only way we will know if its been trully successful is if the afgan security forces can keep the pressure on after 2014. enough to keep it from turning back into the country it was.

Chuck Stone

c-90 wrote: »

what were you expecting in afghanistan? for nato to go in and set up a modern democratic country

Em.. yes. That's why there was general global support for the invasion.

look at the swinging hole it was and how much of a threat to the western world it was in 2001, and yes its cost alot, yes there has been a bloody, slow and vicious counter insurgency. but considering the real "objective" of the war in afghanistan was to bring take the war away from american soil and back to the terrorists that caused the attacks, how can you deny that success.

Again let's get back to reality here. For US Army Col. Larry Wilkerson (Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Visiting professor at the College of William & Mary, teaching courses on U.S. national security) estimates that in the year 2000 there was in the region of 300 to 500 people in the world with the desire and support/capacity to inflict damage on the US/West; recently Wilkerson estimates that there are now 50,000.

Some success there, huh?

the only way we will know if its been trully successful is if the afgan security forces can keep the pressure on after 2014.

The only concern for NATO now is how to manage Afghanistan as a failed state.

MANUTD99

c-90 wrote: »

. but considering the real "objective" of the war in afghanistan was to bring take the war away from american soil and back to the terrorists that caused the attacks, how can you deny that success.

I think this campaign and also the recent Iraq campaign has multiplied terrorism and extreme beliefs from that corner of the world which can only been seen as a bad thing.

You might not see another 9.11 but that wouldn't fill me with hope.

c-90

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Again let's get back to reality here. For US Army Col. Larry Wilkerson (Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Visiting professor at the College of William & Mary, teaching courses on U.S. national security) estimates that in the year 2000 there was in the region of 300 to 500 people in the world with the desire and support/capacity to inflict damage on the US/West; recently Wilkerson estimates that there are now 50,000.

those 300 - 500 people must have been pretty bad ass consideeing the damage they managed to do in 2001,

big difference when a very capable terrorist organisation withthe abillity to bring the figgring to western shores hates you than a a few pissed off farmersfiring at a us patrol.

anyway those figures are ridiculous, what about iran, china.