Afghanistan

Afghanistan. The longest war in Canadian history, and soon to be America's (in March 2010). That is right, longer than The Vietnam War. We went into Afghanistan after 9/11 to rid the Taliban from the country because they supported, and harboured Al-qaeda terrorists.

The Taliban are the group the USA supported during the USSR's campaign, also called the Soviet's Vietnam, they were under the name, the mujahideen. The US provided weapons to the mujahideen so that they could destroy Soviet helicopters, and cause the USSR to fail in Afghanistan. The Soviets were in Afghanistan for 10 years before their retreat.

We have been in Afghanistan since February 2002, with a scheduled end date in 2011, 9 years. The US has been in Afghanistan, and Obama just recently said that he will end the Afghan War in 3 years, so 2012 the end of his first term. Ten years. Ten years, and what will be accomplished? So far in 7 years, we have toppled the Taliban from power, and tried to establish peace, and stability in a region that has known war for over 40 years of a brutal civil war. It is absolutely wonderful what our troops have been doing over there, striving towards a self-sustaining country.

Afghanistan has started to earn the title of "Obama's Vietnam" The thing is, it has been the whole time. The Taliban will fight until Sharia Law is in place, and they are once again in power. The war cannot be won just in Afghanistan. The Taliban do not respect borders, they just travel into Pakistan, in an extremely mountainous region.

The United States is increasing their total troops in the country to approximately 100,000, about a 30,000 more soldiers. This bears a strong resemblance to 1965 when President Johnson ordered an additional 20,000 troops to Vietnam. With no results to show for the following years, he did not attempt a second term. Would the same happen to Obama, probably not. In another case, the South Vietnam (Saigon) government was extremely corrupt, and backed by the US. Afghanistan, and mainly, President Hamid Karzai, who was a Taliban supporter in the '90s, but broke away because of the corruption they had. As many of you know, Karzai rigged the recent Afghan election in his favour. Why should we support an extremely corrupt government? Give the people the freedoms of our society and everything will do itself right? Wrong. A form of society implanted on another does not usually work. For real change to happen, it has to come from within the society for them to truly hang on to it.

The Afghan War is estimated to cost Canada $18 billion dollars by 2011, our pull out date. The States however, has spent $233 billion up to this point. Has it been well spent? What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.

Until Next Time,

Amos 13