Was war peace?
What’s happening in Afghanistan is horrible and depressing, both short-term and long-term.
Within a week of the US pulling out nearly all of our forces out of there, the Taliban has taken over nearly all major cities, including Kabul and the presidential palace.
The Taliban, the far right religious extremists who forced women to wear burqas, who prohibited women from almost all types of professions, who would beat or even execute women if they didn’t follow the inhumane, restrictive laws imposed on them.
One of the very few positive things about the US intervention in Afghanistan had been that many women — at least in areas that weren’t still under Taliban control or influence — were no longer forced to be treated as subhuman 24 hours a day. Progress was made — girls could go to school and aspire to grow up and make a life for themselves that wasn’t forced on them.
Now within a week, all that seems to be gone. Initial reports I’ve read say that there hasn’t been a sudden reversion back to these human rights abuses. But it’s a hell of a lot more likely than it was before, especially considering that in areas where the Taliban still had influence, women were still pressured to wears burqas or other restrictions that, in theory, weren’t legal.
So some, on the right, in the mainstream media, even on the left, are saying that the US shouldn’t have withdrawn our troops.
Others say that the fact that the Taliban toppled the (semi)democratic government and US-trained forces shows that the US did next to nothing in Afghanistan besides get our military industrial complex rich, not help give the Afghani government the resources needed to dissuade the Taliban from taking over the country again, or to fight them if they did.
I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe war is ever the answer. All wars are unjust because, even in the extremely rare cases where the motives are somewhat noble, innocent people can and do die. 20 years of war is horrible; an entire generation in Afghanistan only knows about life in a war-torn country.
But what about this situation now? It would be ludicrous to claim that US forces leaving and the Taliban immediately taking over the country are a coincidence. The US Army being there — with all of its murders, plundering, and torturing through the years — prevented these insane, misogynistic religious zealots from imposing their rules over millions of people.
Source: CNN.com
Was the US staying in Afghanistan better than them leaving? Is the problem that the Pentagon got too complacent and just assumed we’d always be there, so when nearly all the remaining troops (but not all, including private mercenaries) were ordered to leave, there wasn’t enough time — or will — to try to ensure that the Afghan government wouldn’t topple within a week?
I can’t believe that war was better than peace. But was US military presence — including active missions and attacks that killed civilians — better than the US not being there and the Taliban apparently now about to set up a relatively peaceful but incredibly repressive government?
I don’t have the answers. It doesn’t seem like anyone does. With our planet literally burning up, wars being waged everywhere, oppressive regimes regaining power or keeping it — humanity needs to grow up soon and stop killing each other and the planet. Suffering in this world is increasing, and if we don’t do something, it’s going to get even worse.
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