Was the US justified in removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan?

[Don Corleone]

I'm afraid a discussion of the French presidential race is not an appropriate place to have this discussion. So here we are, another war debate.

Now, on October 14, 2001 the USA and our allies launched an aerial invasion of Afghanistan. Several days later a ground invasion began as well. The stated goal was to remove the Taliban from power, to shut down Al Queda training camps and to capture and put on trial Osama bin Laden; for the 1998 embassy bombings, for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2001 9/11 attacks in which almost 3000 Americans were killed.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, President Bush announced to the world an ultimatum to the Taliban, that if they did not surrender Osama bin Laden, they would be viewed as supporting and sheltering him and would be treated as such. The Taliban's response? They refused to acknowledge the statement. Speaking to Saudi and Pakastani ambassadors, they claimed to acknowledge a non-muslim leader of any country would be an insult to Islam, and that only muslim heads of states where sharia was enforced were legitimate rulers.

After several weeks of stall tactics, during which Saudi Arabia and all other states, save Pakistan, severed diplomatic ties with the Taliban, the USA's deadline expired and war commenced.

Was the USA justified? Note, for the purposes of this thread the subsequent military actions in Iraq are not open for discussion, except in how they can be linked to the original decision to engage the Taliban with military force.

[drone]

Yes.

The lack of follow-thru has been disgraceful though, but since that is related to the item we are not supposed to discuss I will leave it at that.

[BigTex]

Yes, the only proper response to an attack on New York and the pentagon.

Sad that we have let the aftermath slip. They were on the right track, but Nato was a poor choice.

[Pannonian]

Yes, the only proper response to an attack on New York and the pentagon.

Sad that we have let the aftermath slip. They were on the right track, but Nato was a poor choice.

Why was NATO a poor choice?

[BigTex]

Why was NATO a poor choice?

Simple, they have done poorly in the parts of afghanistan they took charge of. A larger special forces presence would have been better IMO. Even a US army presence would have done well.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Heh, nice poll results.

edit: legio, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

[Pannonian]

Simple, they have done poorly in the parts of afghanistan they took charge of. A larger special forces presence would have been better IMO. Even a US army presence would have done well.

How do you propose you could have controlled things better on the ground if NATO hadn't provided the grunts? If you used special forces "advisors" to assist primarily Afghan forces, you would have ended up with a warlord-controlled Afghanistan, as in the OTL, but without even the facade of control that we have now. As for a US army presence - we all know why there isn't one, and Don stated specifically at the start of the thread that he doesn't want it discussed here.

For the French baiters here - "Nous sommes tous les Americains".

[Goofball]

Simple, they have done poorly in the parts of afghanistan they took charge of. A larger special forces presence would have been better IMO. Even a US army presence would have done well.

Examples?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Simple, they have done poorly in the parts of afghanistan they took charge of. A larger special forces presence would have been better IMO. Even a US army presence would have done well.

You must admit, Canada has done quite well in their parts of the country, and Germany hasn't fared too poorly either.

[Odin]

I'm afraid a discussion of the French presidential race is not an appropriate place to have this discussion. So here we are, another war debate.

Now, on October 14, 2001 the USA and our allies launched an aerial invasion of Afghanistan. Several days later a ground invasion began as well. The stated goal was to remove the Taliban from power, to shut down Al Queda training camps and to capture and put on trial Osama bin Laden; for the 1998 embassy bombings, for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2001 9/11 attacks in which almost 3000 Americans were killed.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, President Bush announced to the world an ultimatum to the Taliban, that if they did not surrender Osama bin Laden, they would be viewed as supporting and sheltering him and would be treated as such. The Taliban's response? They refused to acknowledge the statement. Speaking to Saudi and Pakastani ambassadors, they claimed to acknowledge a non-muslim leader of any country would be an insult to Islam, and that only muslim heads of states where sharia was enforced were legitimate rulers.

After several weeks of stall tactics, during which Saudi Arabia and all other states, save Pakistan, severed diplomatic ties with the Taliban, the USA's deadline expired and war commenced.

Was the USA justified? Note, for the purposes of this thread the subsequent military actions in Iraq are not open for discussion, except in how they can be linked to the original decision to engage the Taliban with military force.

I think you will be hardpressed to find many who didnt agree with the removal at the time, sadly current circumstances of opinion are flavored by our other choices in the region

[KrooK]

Let me reply by question.
Were the Tailban justified to removing Mudzahedins from Afghanistan?

[caravel]

The fundamental question of all this is: Did the US have the right to invade and occupy Afghanistan? I would say not.

The way I see it 11/09/01 was a strictly terrorist attack by a terrorist group or by those acting on behalf of a terrorist group, not on behalf of any regime, and certainly not on behalf of the Taliban regime. Yes there may have been an element, probably including the Taliban, laughing their socks off at the United States' misfortune, but the fact remains that there is no evidence that the Taliban regime orchestrated or carried out the attack . None of the terrorists themselves were Afghans, in fact they were mostly Saudis. The link to Al Qaeda was based on a Saudi in Afghanistan claiming that he had orchestrated the attacks. So you have a group of Saudis actually carrying out the attack and another Saudi claiming to have been behind it.

Many of you are also ignoring the excuses, and the lies. Bin Laden was never taken, and never brought to account. This was supposed to be the main objective/for going in there in the first place, but was in fact hollow propaganda. When the questions started popping up, the usual excuses started to get churned out, the Taliban were evil and needed to be removed etc. The same happened in Iraq after the WMD debacle, Saddam was harbouring terrorists, linked to Bin Laden even, false, the ba'athists were an evil and repressive regime, true, as were the Taliban,very true, and as are the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and hundreds of other regimes worldwide. The problem I have with this is that invading on a trumped up pretext failing to find the man and then when it is obvious there's nothing else for it, they resort to the same old "they were evil/harbouring terrorists/thinking of building wmds/we're liberating them" line.

What I find disturbing is this very selective meddling in the affairs of other sovereign states (mostly middle eastern or asian ones that either have some of the worlds largest oil reserves or whose territory involves a certain pipeline) around the world. Not having same kind of faith in the US and UK governments as some of you, I'm not so sure that this meddling is for the good of those being meddled with. I also doubt it is for the good of US citizens or UK subjects.

[Zaknafien]

The fundamental question of all this is: Did the US have the right to invade and occupy Afghanistan? I would say not.

The way I see it 11/09/01 was a strictly terrorist attack by a terrorist group or by those acting on behalf of a terrorist group, not on behalf of any regime, and certainly not on behalf of the Taliban regime. Yes there may have been an element, probably including the Taliban, laughing their socks off at the United States' misfortune, but the fact remains that there is no evidence that the Taliban regime orchestrated or carried out the attack . None of the terrorists themselves were Afghans, in fact they were mostly Saudis. The link to Al Qaeda was based on a Saudi in Afghanistan claiming that he had orchestrated the attacks. So you have a group of Saudis actually carrying out the attack and another Saudi claiming to have been behind it.

Many of you are also ignoring the excuses, and the lies. Bin Laden was never taken, and never brought to account. This was supposed to be the main objective/for going in there in the first place, but was in fact hollow propaganda. When the questions started popping up, the usual excuses started to get churned out, the Taliban were evil and needed to be removed etc. The same happened in Iraq after the WMD debacle, Saddam was harbouring terrorists, linked to Bin Laden even, false, the ba'athists were an evil and repressive regime, true, as were the Taliban,very true, and as are the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and hundreds of other regimes worldwide. The problem I have with this is that invading on a trumped up pretext failing to find the man and then when it is obvious there's nothing else for it, they resort to the same old "they were evil/harbouring terrorists/thinking of building wmds/we're liberating them" line.

What I find disturbing is this very selective meddling in the affairs of other sovereign states (mostly middle eastern or asian ones that either have some of the worlds largest oil reserves or whose territory involves a certain pipeline) around the world. Not having same kind of faith in the US and UK governments as some of you, I'm not so sure that this meddling is for the good of those being meddled with. I also doubt it is for the good of US citizens or UK subjects.

Yeah, but if we didn't invade Afghanistan how else would we get those killer contracts for the pipeline?

[Incongruous]

Poorly planned, poorly executed and poorly handled.
Also shows a complete lack of understanding when dealing with terrorists by the White house. Afghanistan is once again in the hands of fractured warlords and drug dealers (yeah go occupying force!).
Liberation is definatley not a word one would throw around anywhere near the name Afghanistan niether is success.
Catastrophe or failure perhaps.
But hey, this is what happen in polotics, real morals are replaced with words and dirty dealing. People become statistics. Someone is making huge amounts of money somewhere, so there is a plus side.

[Adrian II]

Also shows a complete lack of understanding when dealing with terrorists by the White house. Afghanistan is once again in the hands of fractured warlords and drug dealers (yeah go occupying force!).

The Taliban no longer control the country and they are on the defensive. That is the most important result. And the greatest danger, an islamist take-over of Pakistan, is still clear and present. There is no way that Nato can leave the area without the direst consequences. God knows the present picture isn't pretty, but it would be far worse had this regime been allowed to govern and expand unchecked in the region.

The invasion was justified because the Taliban aided and abetted Al Qaeda, not because they personaly organised the 9/11 attacks. Any decent government would have handed over Bin and consorts at the drop of a rosary. Kabul didn't, so the invasion was necessary.

Sure, all states have 'dirty morals', particularly in war. But don't kid yourself that U.S. morals are similar to (or worse than) those of the Taliban. Such moral equivocation is worse than dirty morals.

[Don Corleone]

What I find disturbing is this very selective meddling in the affairs of other sovereign states (mostly middle eastern or asian ones that either have some of the worlds largest oil reserves or whose territory involves a certain pipeline) around the world. Not having same kind of faith in the US and UK governments as some of you, I'm not so sure that this meddling is for the good of those being meddled with. I also doubt it is for the good of US citizens or UK subjects.

Yeah, but if we didn't invade Afghanistan how else would we get those killer contracts for the pipeline?

Right, the famed Afghan pipeline. I almost forgot about that. You folks clearly must be using Fahrenheit 911 as a primary source. The theory proposed by Mr. Moore ws that we rushed into war with Afghanistan so that Haliburton could rush in and build a trans-Afghan pipeline and drain oil and gas out of central Russia.

As urgent as it was, seems a little odd that no construction has yet started, close to 6 years later.

[Petrus]

I voted GAH!

In the days that followed the 11 september 2001, my greatest fear was that to see the us choose to transform Pakistan into radioactive ashes.

Given the fact that those attacks had obviously their roots into this islamist ideological nest, the war to Afghanistan seemed a logical and correct answer.

But.

Afghanistan was the islamist equivalent to a Pakistani protectorate, so limitation of the response to this country was not enough to cut the roots.

The Taliban regime was the only period of peace in Afghanistan since the soviet invasion which means that the resources required to replace it effectively were huge and success not guaranteed.

Fanatics only deserve to be hung with their own guts and this is not limited to Afghanistan, but launching a war to a whole country is not the best way to reach this objective.

The closest historical example of a war after a terrorist attack and an ultimatum to a government supposed to host terrorist organizations was between the Austria-Hungary empire and the little Serbia in 1914. As Austria-Hungary did not exist anymore four years and nine millions dead latter, one can question the relevance of a full scale military response to a terrorist attack.


So I would say that the military invasion would have been justified if it had effectively targeted the removal of islamist power in the area and that it was not if it was limited to pushing the god suckers a little bit farther.

[Tribesman]

Nailed the issue in one neat post (I believe the localjargon is "pwned"). Thank you.

Nope , not at all , the condition and the act are part of the same parcel , if any part of the process is flawed then the whole process is flawed .
An interestingly silly example Louis used though .
So Louis this Jesusville ultimatum , this final demand ,what would the process of reaching that final demand be ? It seems that all steps in that process are flawed .

That was for clarities sake. It is besides the point of this post, but I would argue that the ultimatum did not serve, nor should be regarded as, an act of justification at all.

So another one arguing that the ultimatum isn't an ultimatum

[Louis VI the Fat]

Gah! Petrus wrote a great post. We should be discussing his arguments.

[Tribesman]

No, of course not. What I demonstrated above, is a reversal of your position. It uses the same rhetorical fallacy as your argument about Afghanistan below, the heart of your argument.
I've demonstrated the nature of the fallacy in my previous post.

No you havn't since there is no grounds for the ultimatum you presented so it is flawed , whereas there were grounds for the other ultimatum but the ultimatum itself was flawed .
if any part of the process is flawed then the whole process is flawed .

[Tribesman]

Gah! Petrus wrote a great post. We should be discussing his arguments.

He has a good point , however .....The Taliban regime was the only period of peace in Afghanistan since the soviet invasion which means that the resources required to replace it effectively were huge and success not guaranteed.

It wasn't a period of peace , before they withdrew in the face of the coming invasion the war in the north was still ongoing, they had just fought against 3 large rebellions in the South and East(supposedly their secure heartland) and had narrowly avoided a massive Iranian invasion .

Afghanistan was the islamist equivalent to a Pakistani protectorate, so limitation of the response to this country was not enough to cut the roots.

Any thoughts on the clashes between the Aghan government army and the Pakistan army in Afghanistan last week , or the reports that the US delegation ambushed in Pakistan (and the US soldier killed in that ambush) were attacked by Pakistani soldiers ?

[Louis VI the Fat]

No you havn't since there is no grounds for the ultimatum you presented so it is flawed , whereas there were grounds for the other ultimatum but the ultimatum itself was flawed .

Am I correct that your argument is then that the US was initially justified, but that they lost their justification by isuing an unworkable ultimatum and acting upon it?