The Long War

When the skyscrapers of New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania were attacked on September 11, 2001, which killed thousands, the Taliban regime was in power in Afghanistan and was in league with Osama bin Laden and his cohorts who were responsible for the attacks, or at the very least the Taliban were hosting bin Laden, as they were when bin Laden attacked American embassies in Africa in 1998. Even though some commanding officers' tactics in ousting the Taliban from power were questionable as far as maintaining their obligation in avoiding civilian casualties is concerned, and although a declaration of war should have been passed instead of a Congressional resolution, the Bush administration was on the whole right in taking this military action in this particular country.

Although the Taliban abused human rights severely in Afghanistan, this would not have been a reason for our nation to go to war. It is only because of their connection with the 9-11 attacks as a result of their communion with bin Laden that should have led our nation to war. However, experts with great knowledge of Afghanistan say that there were factions within the Taliban that were not as connected to bin Ladin as the leader, Mullah Omar, was at that time, and that fracture or division still exists to this day. Our political and military leaders should be trying to deal with these less radical factions and thus trying to find diplomatic as well as military solutions in bringing the war in Afghanistan to an end. If the Obama administration's planned escalation of troops in Afghanistan will help to avert the counterproductive drone attacks that we discussed in the previous essay, then this would be an understandable and necessary step in the long war. However, the president should put a greater emphasis in coming up with a diplomatic solution rather than trying to force a total military solution, which most experts say would be exceedingly long and costly, although no solution should be a hindrance in capturing bin Laden.

Post-script: Despite the necessary overthrow of the Taliban regime from power in 2001, this once regime has still been strong enough to wage a war of resistance against the government that replaced them in Afghanistan, thereby threatening to regain control and enabling them to renew their alliance with the arch-terrorist, bin Laden. This is why our nation and our allies must continue to fight this long war.

[revised on 5/26/09]

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