Security and Afghanistan

As the war in Afghanistan continues to prove to be a great challenge, questions over its productivity have increased. Even if a person excludes all the questions about its legitimacy they still have to decide whether it is making them more or less secure. I believe that, in the long run, the war has made me less secure.

The war is Afghanistan acts as a recruitment tool for all terrorist cells. They are able to point to it as proof of the US’s imperialistic desires. Furthermore, anytime we destroy someone’s home, spoil someone’s harvest, or kill someone’s family member we foster the growth of anger; both anger of the individual effected and general societal anger. The societal anger lays a foundation upon which presupposes individuals to turn anger into action when directly effected by the US negatively. The number of terrorist cells has grown exponentially since our “War on Terror.” I suppose that when Bush declared it he forgot that in war both side increase recruitment.

By failing to effectively establish a functioning state in Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban the war has highlighted the weaknesses in the US military. Before the two wars began after 9/11, the US military was held in awe by the world. The war Bosnia and the First Gulf War demonstrated the ability of the US to project power made any attack upon it seem like a daunting proposition. However, the wars in Iraq an Afghanistan have proved to be challenges beyond the reckoning of most people in the early 2000’s. As a result, the world is now intimately aware of the US military’s limitations.

Furthermore, the war in Afghanistan has made us less able to react to additional security threats. If the Bush administrations only goal in Afghanistan was to protect the American people, we would have been much better off with a much more limited approach. Special Forces operations and Predator strikes would have been sufficient resources to limit Al Qaeda’s capabilities to acceptable levels.

Above all, we must realize that fighting the Taliban does not make us more secure. The Taliban’s immediate goals do not extend beyond the Afghan borders. In the Frontline documentary called, “Behind Taliban Lines” they talk to many Taliban fighters about what their motivation is for joining. Across the board they say that the only reason they are fighting is to get foreigners to leave their land. They see the American occupation their as an assault to their dignity. Therefore, while those who truly wish to bring harm to the US homeland have left the country for safer territory, we continue to fight those who want sovereignty. As counterevidence to this point some may point to the more extreme braches of the Taliban in Pakistan who do wish to attack us within our borders. However, these people have been radicalized because of the war and even if the existed before it, they would have been contained without a full-scale invasion.

In Afghanistan, we snatching at flies but the real security threat are the far smaller number of yellow jackets. And while there are several yellow jackets in the meadow were in, the most dangerous ones have moved to safer territory. Meanwhile, these flies keep on biting us and yellow jackets in other places can plan their attacks in leisure. The war in Afghanistan has not made us more secure¬ ⎯ in fact it has created a far larger number of enemies and has hampered our ability to fight the original enemies. If someone wants to justify the war for other reasons (human rights, democracy promotion, etc.) that is up to them, but rationalizing the invasion in terms of security simply does not work.