>A 2006 WPO opinion poll found that the majority of Afghans endorsed America's military presence, with 83% of Afghans stating that they had a favorable view of the US military forces in their country. Only 17% gave an unfavorable view.
>A 2015 survey by Langer Research Associates found that 77% of Afghans support the presence of US forces; 67% also support the presence of NATO forces. Despite the problems in the country, 80% of Afghans still held the view that it was a good thing for the United States to overthrow the Taliban in 2001. More Afghans blame the Taliban or al-Qaeda for the country's violence (53%) than those who blame the US (12%).
The US invasion of Aghanistan was done for purely selfish purposes and the US killed civilians regularly and with impunity. However, could an argument be made that the invasion was actually justified, based purely on the comparative evil of the Taliban?
I'm not trolling, I think this is an important discussion to have.
>However, could an argument be made that the invasion was actually justified, based purely on the comparative evil of the Taliban?
No. Afghanistan was an imperialist war with no redeeming qualities.
>>2810560Sorry thought this was about the Soviet war.
Same thing applies doe
>opinion poll
>unironic moralism
Read the German Ideology
+
Reported for liberalism
>>2810546post the sources, because you have some splaining to do if this is from some think tank named like the Burger Eagle Freedom institute for Zionist Apologia
>>2810546Ultimately, the situation in the country ended up significantly worse than it was before, and on the US side, it didn't really accomplish anything. So all in all, it was, indeed, a bad thing.
>>2810551Becuase the Taliban were abysmal on a lot of issues, but the government the Americans set up was run by a bunch of drug dealing, boy fucking warlords who had a record of atrocities under their belts that would make the Nazis blush, and didn't carry out even the most basic functions of government. These people were then of course operating entirely as pawns of US imperialism that aimed to subjugate the country and steal its resources. There's pretty much nothing I agree with the Taliban on, but at the very least they restored the country's sovereignty and carried out basic government functions. Read The Afghanistan Papers if you want an in depth look with primary sources.
>>2810546>Was the War in Afghanistan actually justified?Only if we are talking about USSR defending Afghan communist government.
If the US wanted to make Afghanistan a stable libdem country, they could. They chose not to because it was not in their interest to make Afghanistan a stable libdem country. Allowing the extreme corruption and incompetence of the Afghan govt during the occupation was a deliberate choice.
>>2810885>Does this mean we should have been rooting for the Taliban during the withdrawal?No, you don't have to root for anybody in the sense of publicly glazing them. It's both unnecessary and in the context of the Taliban would probably be a bad look. At this point if there was a communist insurgency against the Taliban I'd obviously want it to succeed. Ultimately though the question of who rules Afghanistan can only be decided by the Afghans. However since it was an imperialist war, the correct position for workers and socialists in the aggressor countries is revolutionary defeatism. We should have at the very least been exposing the real causes and interests behind the war and demanding immediate withdrawal, which most communists were already doing.
Obviously anything the USSR did was defacto justified, except the stuff that wasnt
This is what happens when you don't ban "anti campists"
>>2810983OP is 100% a western radlib campist :)
>>2811011I don't actually support the US invasion of Afghanistan at all, I just wanted to see what people's responses would be. Starting a discussion about a war does not make somebody a troll or a campist or a radlib. I'm just trying to talk about the war, the only reason I gave a pro-intervention angle in the OP is because otherwise nobody would engage with it or give their opinion. Could you imagine if my post was "The US invasion of Afghanistan was completely unjustified"? Nobody would give a fuck.
>>2810546A certain moral case could be assembled (and unlike the Iraq war, which it's usually grouped with, a lot more of the world were onboard with Afghanistan at the start!) but then you have to focus on one core thing: it ultimately wasn't sustainable and the Taliban came right back in at the end. So even in that world, the thing was an expensive flop.
>>2810983>>2811011There is nothing wrong with letting people post mistaken ideas and correcting them, particularly in foreign policy, the least democratic of all areas of public policy. OP could be an outright NATO-loving neocon and it wouldn't justify a ban.
>>2811024Most of this site are intellectually lazy, pavlovian idiots like you'd find on /v/ with a superficial communist vernier. Don't worry about it but don't expect better anyway.
>>2811028We already have Neo-Nazis promoting their favorite social fascist celebrity politicians of the week with any pushback banned, might as well have an unapologetic neocon. At least he’s honest about his ghoulish intentions and doesn’t pretend to be a communist. This site is a joke
>>2811031I'm a fucking Marxist you absolute retard
The Soviet one was justified. Though the incompetence of the Afghan government allowed it to explode the way it did. It was still historically progressive to fight fedual-islamists. And it was necessary to prevent the spread of a terror network funded by the US in Muslim majority republics.
The Soviet Afghan government also lasted way longer than the US led one, when left alone.
>>2811033A “Marxist” who tolerates Nazism as long as it comes from the left wing of capital is no Marxist. A leftoid maybe, but no Marxist and certainly not a communist
>>2811036>A “Marxist” who tolerates Nazism as long as it comes from the left wing of capital is no MarxistYou mean like the entire Third International except for five years from 1928-1933?
>>2811031>nazis>promoting social fascism, not just fascismshut the fuck up retard.
>>2811028>Most of this site are intellectually lazy, pavlovian idiots like you'd find on /v/ with a superficial communist vernier. Don't worry about it but don't expect better anyway.yup
>>2810980crickets from t he OP
>>2811771Yes because I fucking agree with them, you retard
if afghans loved the us and hated the taliban so much why didn't they put up more of a fight during the taliban takeover? they pretty much just laid down on the floor and let the taliban take over the country
>>2811809because the taliban was armed with millions of dollars of US weapons that the US left behind LOL
Thinking about international politics through the lens of moral justification is going to totally break your brain. The occupation of Afghanistan was retarded because it was doomed. The Khalq made this same mistake kind of. You can't take a semi-feudal tribal shithole and remake it in the image of a culture that corresponds to a completely different economic stage.
>>2813086>The US was looking to make Afghanistan a liberal democracy Liberals actually believe this.
Also the Taliban did a better job proletariaizing the country and slowly turning it into a liberal democracy, almost like you can't escape the the base no matter what flag you have and what morality laws you enforce. Soon you'll bend over to international capital just like the Saudis and Iranians did.
>>2813094>The US was looking to make Afghanistan a liberal democracy The post you're responding to never said that they were. They were trying to remake it in the image of other Western regional puppets though.
>>2813118
Not necessarily. I wouldn't call Pakistan a liberal democracy since the military basically runs the country.
>>2813119>i wouldn't call liberal democracy liberal democracy The US is a police state, still a liberal democracy
>>2813094>almost like you can't escape the the base no matter what flag you have Which is exactly the point I was making. You're looking for something to be angry about.
>>2810546I remember some Afghanistan war documentary, I think "This Is What Winning Looks Like," they talked about how the infrastructure plans never went anywhere and got pocketed by corrupt local elites. So if that was true and generalized through the country you can't even make the excuse about increasing productive forces.
>>2813276Definitely read The Afghanistan Papers. It goes in depth into what a total shitshow the whole thing was from start to finish. Half the time the ISAF forces weren't even fighting the Taliban but chasing random farmers and bandits around. The first troops to be deployed were taught Arabic instead of Farsi. Pretty much every infrastructure package went directly to warlord palaces or partying in Europe, and reading about the stuff those guys got up to in the 90s will make your skin crawl. The entire thing was a farce.
>>2813119>the military basically runs the countryfrom what I understand its exaggerated, the military control the foreign policy and diplomacy, and can throw its weight to make the government fall when it feels its needed, but the civilian government is still in control of internal policy and is a liberal democracy
>>2810546It's because they wanted to have gay sex with boys without prejudice
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