US Military Action in Afghanistan - Poll

[Exi5tentialist]

In the Civilian Casualties Derail Coito ergo sum said:

Almost everyone thinks the US was entitled to go into Afghanistan as it did

Is this true?

Edited: to make the subject title more concise

[Rum]

Not from my perspective, no. The 'war on terror' could have gone in several directions, but trying to 'tame' Afghanistan was a not a good (or right) option in my view. Just ask the British in the 19th century!

[Exi5tentialist]

Just ask the British in the 19th century!

Was that the only reason? That it would be most likely doomed to failure?

[JimC]

I think it was a reasonable move initially, to kick the arses of the Taliban, allies and supporters of terrorist thugs who had just attacked the US.

Past time to pull out, now - the alliance is doing nothing more than propping up a weak, ineffectual and corrupt government, merely prolonging the inevitable...

[Exi5tentialist]

I think it was a reasonable move initially, to kick the arses of the Taliban, allies and supporters of terrorist thugs who had just attacked the US.

Past time to pull out, now - the alliance is doing nothing more than propping up a weak, ineffectual and corrupt government, merely prolonging the inevitable...

Thanks for the reply. Apologies, now corrected, but I may have originally fooked up the poll to start with by putting the answers in the order "No, Yes" to make sure people thought about it, but then I think I ended up voting for the one I didn't mean to so obviously that was a dumb move. I've edited it so they're now in the sensible order "Yes, No". If anyone who has voted so far needs to change their vote they can. Doh.

[JimC]

I think it was a reasonable move initially, to kick the arses of the Taliban, allies and supporters of terrorist thugs who had just attacked the US.

Past time to pull out, now - the alliance is doing nothing more than propping up a weak, ineffectual and corrupt government, merely prolonging the inevitable...

Thanks for the reply. Apologies, now corrected, but I may have originally fooked up the poll to start with by putting the answers in the order "No, Yes" to make sure people thought about it, but then I think I ended up voting for the one I didn't mean to so obviously that was a dumb move. I've edited it so they're now in the sensible order "Yes, No". If anyone who has voted so far needs to change their vote they can. Doh.

No problem; I've changed mine to "Yes", with the proviso that I mean "Yes initially, but we should have fucked off by now"

[FBM]

I don't think I can answer the poll the way it's set up. Yes, the US should have taken action IN Afghanistan, as long as that's where bin Laden and boys were, but not AGAINST Afghanistan, which is how it turned out. Taking action against a few select targets with a small task force instead of taking over the whole country and trying to turn it into Little America. Covert ops and air support kinda thing, instead of the Bush preferred method of tearing through the country with guns a-blazin'.

[Exi5tentialist]

I don't think I can answer the poll the way it's set up. Yes, the US should have taken action IN Afghanistan, as long as that's where bin Laden and boys were, but not AGAINST Afghanistan, which is how it turned out. Taking action against a few select targets with a small task force instead of taking over the whole country and trying to turn it into Little America. Covert ops and air support kinda thing, instead of the Bush preferred method of tearing through the country with guns a-blazin'.

Oh well, can't change the poll again now. I think the distinction is slightly unnecessary. If the US bombed the LibDem Conference I would have no hesitation saying their attack was AGAINST the UK even though I would wholeheartedly approve of the attack being IN the UK.

[Robert_S]

Yes.

I think we fucked it up, but Al Quaeda openly declared war on the US and then proceeded to attack the US. If the Taliban had said "Here's what we know, go have at them!" then we should have taken out Bin Laden and co, and then left.

But as far as I can tell, it was not allowing the Soviets to have an orderly withdrawal that caused the Afgahistan to be the shyithole it eventually became.

[Feck]

I don't think I can answer the poll the way it's set up. Yes, the US should have taken action IN Afghanistan, as long as that's where bin Laden and boys were, but not AGAINST Afghanistan, which is how it turned out. Taking action against a few select targets with a small task force instead of taking over the whole country and trying to turn it into Little America. Covert ops and air support kinda thing, instead of the Bush preferred method of tearing through the country with guns a-blazin'.

This is how I feel about it ,although it might not have shown many results ,so it might have just gradually escalated to situation we have now ?

[Tyrannical]

We could have accomplished everything we needed to do in Afghanistan with a few air drops of nerve gas. There was no need for many boots on the ground at all.

[Feck]

We could have accomplished everything we needed to do in Afghanistan with a few air drops of nerve gas. There was no need for many boots on the ground at all.

That would have made the demonising Saddam for his use of Gas a little difficult wouldn't it ?

[Tyrannical]

We could have accomplished everything we needed to do in Afghanistan with a few air drops of nerve gas. There was no need for many boots on the ground at all.

That would have made the demonising Saddam for his use of Gas a little difficult wouldn't it ?

Meh, I could live with that. Dead is dead anyways, though dropping napalm on people does seem a bit cruel. Still quick though.

[FBM]

I don't think I can answer the poll the way it's set up. Yes, the US should have taken action IN Afghanistan, as long as that's where bin Laden and boys were, but not AGAINST Afghanistan, which is how it turned out. Taking action against a few select targets with a small task force instead of taking over the whole country and trying to turn it into Little America. Covert ops and air support kinda thing, instead of the Bush preferred method of tearing through the country with guns a-blazin'.

This is how I feel about it ,although it might not have shown many results ,so it might have just gradually escalated to situation we have now ?

I'm not convinced escalation would have been inevitable. Well, except for the fact that we had a Prez who WANTED it to so that he could be known as a 'war President' like his daddy.

[Rum]

If half the money which has been spent on the military campaign had been spent on aid, infrastructure development and especially bribery of village chiefs and opthers, the results would have been considerably more effective in my view!