State of the Union: Why Afghanistan? Part 2 of 2

By Zach Foster

This is the first in a series of responses to the many issues brought up in President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address.

Continued from Part 1.

Osama Bin Laden has proven to be actively involved in leading both Al Qaeda and the Taliban to wage jihad against the West.  At this point in time, Al Qaeda is out of Afghanistan, but the Taliban remain, and they have fought and clawed for every inch of ground the Coalition has taken from them.  They are terrorists who continuously use violence and murder against civilians to bring about their warped vision of a radical fundamentalist Islamic utopia.

Many people say, “Al Qaeda is gone, and as long as the Taliban stays inside Afghanistan, what goes on in that country is none of our business.  We have no business in Afghanistan!”  This falsehood is the result of grievously misguided judgments.  First and foremost, there is a war on and the present situation applies to the old shop proverb “You break it, you buy it.”  The United States military decapitated the Taliban government and leadership, and it would be completely irresponsible to abandon the new fledgling democratic Afghan government, since Afghanistan’s history has shown that fledgling democracies are quickly preyed on by the wolves.

American presence and assistance has been requested by the people of Afghanistan who dared to live outside of Taliban totalitarianism.  What many don’t know about the country is that it has been in a continuous state of civil war since 1977.  Nearly sixty years of peace in Afghanistan were interrupted in 1977 when the Communist party took over in a coup, actively taking steps to remove freedom of religion from the Afghan people.  The Communist phase, which included ten years of Soviet intervention, lasted until 1992. From 1992 to 1996 was the most chaotic phase of civil war, most of the time being fought three ways by three or more factions, ending with the victory of the Taliban.  Then from 1996 to 2001 saw the resistance against the Taliban by the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (the Northern Alliance)—our allies against the Taliban—who wanted nothing but to live free of radical religious totalitarian violence.  For years the Northern Alliance begged the world for help.  This help was ironically delivered into their hands when Al Qaeda brought down the towers.

Since then, with American intervention and the precious investment of American blood, the veterans of the Northern Alliance who bravely fought for freedom are now the leaders and a large portion of the ranks of what we know today as the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.  Even better, the people of Afghanistan are voting in their own elections and slowly practicing free market.  The U.S.’s current mission for Afghanistan is to help their government to grow strong enough to take over its own fighting and to eventually stabilize its own country.  This mission has been working in Iraq.  Regardless of how people felt about the morality of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, we broke it, so it was our responsibility to fix it.  Now the Iraqi army and police are fighting their own war against insurgents, which has greatly wound down.  The Iraq War has been long, but the end is in sight, and it will be worth it.

Will peace and stability happen quickly?  No.  After the end of the Korean War, there was still much violence on the Demilitarized Zone, but with American assistance, the South Koreans were able to build up their military and their economy.  It took nearly three decades for South Korea to become a pure democracy, but today it is a model country.  South Korea is democratic and an industrial and military powerhouse, because the United States protected it from the North.  In 1972 and 1973, Vietnamization was working in favor of the South Vietnamese, who were able to win military victories against the North Vietnamese, with some American air power assisting them, such as in the battle of An Loc.  The South Vietnamese stopped a major North Vietnamese offensive in 1972.  However, Americans lost faith in the war and Congress broke the defense treaty with South Vietnam, and the people of the South were left defenseless against the North, which violated peace agreements, rebuilt its army, and launched a once-and-for-all massive invasion.

It will be a long road, but we must not abandon the Afghan people in their time of need.  Three decades from now, Afghanistan and Iraq can be like South Korea.  It is our responsibility to protect the Afghan people from the wolves a little longer, so that Afghanistan does not become the Taliban’s prey like South Vietnam was for the north.