What is our objective in Afghanistan?

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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Nagao on June 7, 2010 at 10:34am

Oddly enough, I read about the Afghan peace talks the day after writing this

http://www.respectedopinions.com/group/afghanistanwar/forum/topics/...

Permalink Reply by Ternura Rojas on June 17, 2010 at 7:47am

Hi Nicholas,
I could talk a lot about what is "our" objective in Afghanistan. But instead of talking about myself and my philanthropic tendencies I better point out the objectives that our governments seem to have in Afghanistan, which is more scary:
Europe-Spain: what we are doing there is to ensure we get our "right to oil", which is secured by sending troops and spending a lot of money; if Spain dares to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, the country can say good bye to our share of much needed energy.
About US: apparently, apart from securing the zone for the energy supply, soldiers have been doing an outstanding job there! I wonder who trained them to smell Lithium mines ;-)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?ref=gl...

In summary, "we" are there in Afghanistan with the aim of exploiting the resources of the country and its strategic location. Every since keeping a colony would not look very civilized any more, "we" decided to use war as an excuse for invasion, which is far more civilized!
Ternura

Permalink Reply by Nicholas Nagao on June 17, 2010 at 8:11am

Ternura,

I love hearing from people outside of North America because I now realize how slanted our media coverage is, so it's nice to have a viewpoint from another perspective. With regards to oil/energy, I am under the impression that Afghanistan currently sits on precious minerals, but not oil. Also, those minerals have not yet begun to be mined, but the estimates put the value in the trillions of USD. Am I missing some kind of logistical link in Afghanistan which relates to oil/energy?

I also agree that personal and government objectives are different, but it seems that President Obama is re-evaluating this (although he also hasn't made it very clear) and in general I think that's important to do when you're in war to make sure the objective doesn't simply become to "win the war".

What I think happened at least for the U.S. was that the objective was one of Revenge in the name of national security, which was a decent objective when people were upset over 9/11, but is a poor long term objective. The problem now is that Obama needs to clearly state that the objective was actually wrong from the beginning, but we were blinded by rage at the time. The objective should have been more along the lines of providing security to our country...but if that had been the objective, we may not have invaded Afghanistan. While it made us feel better, and we thought we had a legitimate chance of getting Bin Laden, if you are really worried about security, you probably wouldn't have gone about it that way. If I was truly only worried about national security, I would probably send in elite forces to find and assassinate Bin Laden, while keeping more forces at home to secure our borders. While they are unpopular right now because of their actions near Gaza, the Israelis have shown that type of strategy to be quite effective in securing their homeland. They use precision attacks, and focus on the defense of their borders.



Nick

Permalink Reply by Ternura Rojas on June 17, 2010 at 8:37am

Hello Nick
For my last comment I think that you already realised that I am not such a good communicator as you are, I am more a "doer"
I want to answer your question: "Am I missing some kind of logistical link in Afghanistan which relates to oil/energy?" by sharing this post with you and the rest:
Is an Oil Pipeline Behind the War in Afghanistan?
Please have a read and let me know your opinion, after you get to understand my viewpoint we could keep on with the discussion.
Thank you VERY MUCH!
T
Thank you!

Permalink Reply by Nicholas Nagao on June 17, 2010 at 9:19am

Ternura,

Thank you for sharing that article. I can see how this might seem plausible to some people (although I'm surprised it's originated from the United States), but anyone that was in the United States on 9/11 knows the reason we initially went to Afghanistan. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we went to Afghanistan to exact revenge on the people responsible for attacking us on our home soil for the first time since Pearl Harbor. Anyone giving other reasons for the initial invasion has forgotten what it was like immediately following the attacks. I agree completely that we went to Iraq with oil in mind, but Afghanistan is a completely different thing. It might look the same now, but that's one of the major reasons I wanted to write about Afghanistan, because I believe it to be very different and yet people are continually drawing comparisons between the 2. Keep in mind the world TALIBAN was not even mentioned when we went to Afghanistan. We were after Al Qaeda, and the Taliban only became familiar to many of us after we went back into Iraq.

As far as why other countries have joined/stayed in the fight, perhaps there is something to the pipeline theory, but certainly the U.S. went in looking for Bin Laden, and it was that play on angry emotions after the attack that destined us for another 4 years of war mongering with the re-election of George Bush....in my opinion.

Permalink Reply by Ternura Rojas on June 17, 2010 at 10:27am

Hi Nick,
I am enjoying this discussion. I believe we are now close to agree.

Europe invaded Afghanistan for the pipe, not for supporting the revenge of the US.

About the reasons of the US, I don't think all citizens can state that they sent the troops in response to the 9/11 attack, I mean, it is not yet really clear whether that awful incident was a conspiracy of the Bush family against the Bin Laden family or the Hussein family or it was simply an economic strategy.

I say this because I keep hearing comments of people who assure they received a phone call advising them not to go to their offices at the Tween Towers that day. I find even more surprising that these people actually took the advise! I mean, can we believe them?
I guess we will never know the truth, or al least not for a long time.

On the other hand, I need to share my dad's thoughts: he lives in Texas, I can remember around that time his voice through the phone telling me in a very relaxed fashion: "as long as we maintain this war, the Economy of the US will keep growing and we all will be fine".

Finally, if I was angry about the re-election of G. Bush, I would not need to go to the far east to take revenge. That re-election was a fraud, and the whole world knows that. The counting and recounting votes in Florida....really funny, I feel compelled to use the adjective "thirdworldish" as I always thought that kind of election "victories" would happen only in countries like mine (Bolivia).

Thanks again for the walk ;-)
T

Permalink Reply by Nicholas Nagao on June 17, 2010 at 11:29am

Ternura,
I'm also enjoying this conversation!

With regards to a U.S. led conspiracy, I don't think even I will paint Bush in such a horrible light. These conspiracies imply that Bush is responsible for killing his own people....sorry but I don't buy it. No offense to anyone that believes these theories, but think of the leader of your own country attacking their own country. Then tell me what you think it would take for that leader to make that decision. I think you would find anyone that is reasonable enough to have been elected to office would find that an almost impossible decision to make....even if the personal gain was great. I just picked up the book "Shock Doctrine" because a friend of mine recommended it to me, and I understand that it has some theories along these lines, so perhaps I'll be able to speak more to them after I read it.

As far as the economy being helped by wars, many economists have already shown how wrong that is. First, we don't fight wars the same way any more....our industrial sector has not shut down in order to provide tanks, jeeps, munitions, and planes....Not to mention that the national deficit is to a point that the added drain of a war is making things worse not better. I say this even with the knowledge that my family has benefited some from Bush policies because my dad is a scientist that works in defense.

Oh man, I forgot about the debacle that was the re-election of GW....thanks for giving me heartburn again :p

Nick