54 killed, 90 wounded in attack on Afghan compound

Didn't the USSR leave a good example of why you shouldn't invade Afghanistan? You can't leave once you get inside. It is a perfect chaos. You can't defeat an enemy that is conjured up. Afghanistan is only a country by name. Like the OP said, in reality it is more like 20 countries and none of them care to be the 1.

 

Afghanistan was and is much harder to fight in than Iraq but the reasons for going to Iraq were much worse. It was a fact that the Taliban were sheltering OBL. It was speculation that Saddam had WMD.

 

Except the objective of the Afghanistan never should have been "turn it into a nation state." The objective was to hunt down and destroy Bin Laden and everyone connected to him. That was the mistake the Soviets and Americans made, trying to build a civilized state among barbarians.

A bunch of Afghanis killing each other means absolutely nothing to me and should mean nothing to the United States.

 

The Taliban could've told him to leave as other countries had. Even if they couldn't have gotten him they could've said they weren't going to protect him. The problems with getting OBL are well documented. The US military left it to the Northern Alliance to get him Tora Bora. The US might not want to business with the Taliban but if they had given up OBL it would've blunted much of the drive to invasion and occupation. Let's not forget that the US did do business with the precursors of the Taliban during the Soviet Invasion so it wouldn't be without precedence for them to do so.

As far as the nation building exercise at the time it was felt that Afghanistan had become a failed state primarily because nothing had been done since the Soviet withdrawl. The feeling was that just leaving Afghanistan alone the same problems would continue to crop up. With Afghanistan continuing to be a haven for for groups like Al Qaeda and a major center for drug production. Now I am willing to say that the problems with addressing were underestimated and a lot of mistakes were made especially dealing with Karzai and let's not forget shifting a lot of resources a year later to go invade Iraq. The reasons though for the invasion and nation building were more than just vengeance.

I am also going to point out that the invasion of Afghanistan had almost universal support when it happened. Not saying that you weren't one who opposed it but it seems like there are are lot of people now saying it was a mistake when that certainly wasn't the widespread view in 2002.

 

Says WHO exactly? These were not the stated goals of the war, seems to be pure speculation on your part.

Also, what universal support? To be clear, unless by universal support you mean a bunch of COUNTRIES whose arms were twisted by GWB agreed to invade.. there was no semblance of universal support. The FBI did not and could not at the time even provide evidence that the plot was executed inside Afghanistan, let alone have evidence to pin it on Bin Laden.

In 2002, most PEOPLE opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. You may be correct that most people supported the idea of swiftly capturing the man who orchestrated the murder of 3,000+ innocent people. But that is vastly different than universal support for a decades long war with Afghanistan with this many casualties and freakin Karzai sitting at the top.

Honestly, it takes some nerve for you to even speculate that drug production was a motive given what we know now as facts about your agents' behavior with drugs in Afghanistan and Karzai's background.

What a ridiculous post.

 

Proof. Now.

 

Right? I'm sure if it had been framed as a "decades long war with Afghanistan with this many casualties and freakin Karzai sitting at the top", but it wasn't. People were very much in favor of the war in Afghanistan at the beginning as opposed to the Iraq war.

 

Sometimes it is like you lived an alternate history. This was widely stated at the start of the invasion of Afghanistan. The UN primarily driven by the US and with mostly US resources set up ISAF to rebuild Afghanistan. The US also helped to organize the Loya Jirga that put Karzai into power. GW Bush at the outset of the war frequently talked about helping the Afghan people. to It was widely considered a mistake to abandon Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
[rquoter]Once the Soviets withdrew, US interest in Afghanistan slowly decreased over the following four years, much of it administered through the DoD Office of Humanitarian Assistance, under the then Director of HA, George M. Dykes III. With the first years of the Clinton Administration in Washington, DC, all aid ceased. The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country, instead handing the interests of the country over to US allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Pakistan quickly took advantage of this opportunity and forged relations with warlords and later the Taliban, to secure trade interests and routes. From wiping out the country's trees through logging practices, which has destroyed all but 2% of forest cover country-wide, to substantial uprooting of wild pistachio trees for the exportation of their roots for therapeutic uses, to opium agriculture, the ten years following the war saw much ecological and agrarian destruction.[139][/rquoter]

This war never sold just as go in get OBL and get out.

As you can see in 2001 there was more than 90% support among the US populace. The Authorization for Force passed Congress with only one vote against in both houses. While there was not a UNSC vote on the US invasion the UNSC resolution authorizing ISAF was unanimous, that means including Russia and PRC, and ISAF has 51 countries participate. What is important to note is that the US Iraq coalition was only 37 countries and many countries such as Canada and France participated in ISAF while publicly opposing US involvement in Iraq.

Truther? Are you one of those

Not supported by facts.

That is fallacious logic considering at the time that few knew who Karzai was or that the war would take more than a decade. For that matter that two years later we would be devoting resources to invade and occupy Iraq.

What is ridiculous is you accusing others of making speculative post when your arguments aren't supported by facts and seemingly based on an alternate history.

 

You can always question the occupation; but nothing wrong with initially attacking Al Qaeda's home base and sovereign protection, and at least showing that it can and will happen again if necessary. Especially considering how many other countries we were able to get to go along, that didn't support the second Gulf War.

 

Mathloon is full of crap. That's all.

 

1) Yes I'm sure it was considered a "mistake" abandoning Afghanistan, as much as it was earlier in history considered a shameful error "losing China".

Here are the aims of the war BEFORE the war began:

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/

Subsequently, the Taliban offered OBL up as long as evidence was provided of their allegations towards OBL. The US couldn't provide evidence. It was later determined that the only evidence they have indicated that the plan was executed in Germany and a country which I cannot name (a quick google search will reveal this).

2) As I said, by universal support you mean a closet of countries and not true universal support. You also seem to be deviating from the point by claiming most Americans supported the action. Of course they did, this is following a terrorist attack on their country where the US government and media collaborated to convince them that the only way to avoid another attack was to invade Afghanistan.

You are the one who made the claim. Clarify it, or admit that there was no universal support that an evidence-less invasion/war in Afghanistan is not what people universally supported. As I said, what people supported was the swift capture of the person who murdered 3,000+ innocent civilians. For this there was universal support. For what actually happened, there was no universal support, unless universal support means the UNSC having blind faith in its most powerful member.

Here is the evidence for my claim:

3) Truther? lol Could you get any cheaper with your shots? Show me the pre-attack evidence. FYI I have always been in favor of capturing him. What I have never supported is what happened. In order to enter a war to kill a man accused of a crime, you need evidence. After almost a year of investigative work, your FBI chief could not even state that there is evidence that it was OBL. Again, I'm sure OBL was behind it. But that's based on my own speculation and access to facts in 2013. This is an entirely different thing than having the evidence prior to raping an entire country.

4) America is not the world. Everyone knew who Karzai was as much as anyone would normally know who such a figure would be. Most importantly, the US government knew exactly who Karzai was.

5) You must admit it is incredibly ridiculous that even now in 2013 you listed drugs as a motive for the Afghanistan war and nation building. This is beyond obscene. You have a made a whole host of speculative statements and the only evidence you've presented is:

- (As I predicted) that a group of country heads, legitimately or illegitimately representing populations, supported the invasion of Afghanistan as the invasion was deceitfully described at the time.

- Most Americans supported the war. No **** Sherlock. Look at what they were fed. Your lukewarm shock that people have changed their views based on dramatically changing evidence is further proof of your insincerity.

We have proof.. not evidence, but proof... that your government lied about the side of this that justified a war rather than extradition, and yet you have the nerve to act outraged over my calling you out or people changing their minds. It is truly ridiculous.

 

Er, no. That is not what the Taliban offered.

This is what they offered. To try Bin Laden. In Afghanistan. Under Islamic law.

Yeah, that's just reeks of credibility, doesn't it.

As for your poll? I will go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt that this poll exists, but there are quite a few things wrong with it from my perspective, which are misleading questions. Would I rather try Bin Laden than go to war for him? Would I prefer to avoid killing civillians? Uh, sure. While you're at it, I'd prefer that Morey trade Parsons for Lebron James.

Are you suggesting that America's support for the war declined because they became convinced that Bin Laden didn't do it? I mean, I guess that's technically true, because the mid-2000s was the height of Loose Change lunacy, but that's not why the support for the war declined, as opposed to the simplistic idea that since the Taliban was no longer in Kabul and Bin Laden was in a cave, it wasn't worth the additional American lives to find him or something.