Jack+B.--Afghan+War

Home Small Wars Project Perspectives on Afganistan Midterm Assignment Student Recommendations - Position Essays

TASK II: Write and Post a POSITION ESSAY to the wiki. Due Thursday, December 15th. Write an essay that advances a well-supported position on the question below and post it on: Student Recommendations wiki **How should the United States proceed in Afghanistan? ** Position Essay RUBRIC: A quality will essay will •open by setting up a context for the question--briefly explain why the unites States is fighting a war in Afghanistan, •develop a position or specific answer to the question that precisely states how the United States should proceed in Afghanistan, •use two criteria of the Just War Theory to analyze to what extent the U.S.'s involvement in Afghanistan is a Just War, •use three Perspectives to support your explanation of why our involvement in the war benefits or harms AFGHANIS, •use three different Perspectives to support your explanation of why the war benefits or harms AMERICANS, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•draw supporting information from the articles studied in class which are posted on Moodle, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•wrap up the essay by restating the key reasons why your position is the best way for the U.S. to proceed in Afghanistan. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•organize your ideas in extended power paragraphs, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•establish the credibility of sources, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•cite sources internally and in a Works Cited, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•edit language errors from writing, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">•post the essay on <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #800000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">Student Recommendations

A common question that Americans talk about is how should we proceed in Afghanistan? We have been in Afghanistan for 10 years trying to fight off the Taliban and other terrorist groups, help bring stability to the government, and protect our interests in the land mainly for oil. We went in as a response to the attacks of 9/11 because the Taliban government was giving aid to the terrorist group the attack us, Al-Qaeda. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan and lost over 1,600 American lives, many Americans believe that it is time to pull out of Afghanistan and bring our troops home. America needs to pull out its troops but it still needs to provide aid to Afghanistan, not the billions we are sending now, less than that and let NATO forces take over the main operations.

When we entered Afghanistan we had the right intention to go in. We went as a response to an attack on U.S. soil, and to most Americans that is a great intention to go in and find the man responsible for the attacks. Also, we are supporting the Afghanistan government by providing them with billions of dollars to help rebuild their country. Unfortunately, a lot of the money we send them is going into the pockets of government officials instead of going into the economy to help make the country more stable. The Afghanistan conflict can also be classified as a just cause war because we are there to help restore the government from the extremely corrupt Taliban government that preceded the government today, although today’s government is still very corrupt just not as corrupt. We are also there protecting the lives of innocent civilians; unfortunately since we have been there more civilians have been hurt and/or killed just because of our presence. It is estimated that there have been between 17,000 and 37,000 civilian deaths since the U.S. got involved in 2001. The war in Afghanistan is a just war to be fighting but has cost the U.S. tax payers billions of dollars and American lives; it is time to bring our men and women home.

If we left Afghanistan right now it would benefit the U.S. in many different ways. For starters, it would bring our men and women home and out of harm’s way so there would be no more American deaths. According to Senator Dick Durbin “finding a resolution by military means is highly unlikely and not a realistic basis for U.S. policy, how can we send one more American soldier to fight and die in Afghanistan?” This is a very valid point, we need to stop sending troops into Afghanistan and start pulling them out. This would keep our soldiers out of harm’s way and they could finally come home for good instead of being in Afghanistan for 18 months and being home for 3. According to CostofWar.com we have spent $485,208,469,714 as of December 16th at 12:35 am. In just 5 minutes of watching the clock the number rose by about $1,000,000. That is a lot of tax payer’s money going to Afghanistan and if most of that is going into the pockets of government officials then why are we still paying it? That’s a waste of money that could have gone to more useful things. You can also narrow the spending; just in Columbus, Ohio we have spent $1,357,113,507 as of December 16th at 12:40 am. It would greatly benefit us to leave Afghanistan so we could save most of that money and use it for better projects. We are angering most of the middle-eastern countries, especially Pakistan due to the recent bombing of forts killing 24 Pakistan soldiers. Pakistan is outraged and is forcing the U.S. to leave its base in Southeast Pakistan; the base is used to launch drones into Afghanistan. The Pakistan government officials also boycotted the meeting in Bonn, Germany to talk about the incident that occurred on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. It would benefit us to leave Afghanistan because we would get our troops out of harm’s way, save billions of dollars, and hopefully repair our relationship with neighboring countries like Pakistan.

Many people believe it would harm us to leave Afghanistan at their most needy point in time. According to The New York Times article on Aid Agencies in Afghanistan Fear Reversals, if we leave now more terror and chaos will erupt because there is no one to protect the country from terrorist groups. Since the government is weak, it can’t fund a police or military force to stop crime and protect its civilians. Also in this article it talks about how bad the economy is right now, a major company just laid off 400 of its 900 employees and that 2.1% of Afghanistan’s GDP is in exports. Since the government is weak if we pull out and only provide a small amount of aid, this would hurt us because what we’ve worked for over the past 10 years would all fall down. The government we have set up would collapse, more terrorist would flood into Afghanistan, and the billions of dollars we have spent on repairs would have been wasted. According to the Economist, Investors have many skilled workers but since the government is weak and can’t really do anything these workers have no jobs. The land is rich in natural resources like copper but no one can organize a company due to the corruption in the government. If we left now, the Taliban would most likely take over the government, if this happened we would lose much of our supply of oil because we get a large part of it from Afghanistan. American runs on oil and if we lose that connection with a big oil country then we basically lose America.

The best course of action for the U.S. would be to pull all of our troops out of Afghanistan and provide money aid but no personal. For the money, we wouldn’t provide what we are now; we would provide significantly less and work out a deal with NATO to also provide money aid to Afghanistan. NATO could also provide troops if it were necessary. This is the best course of action because it gets our troops out of harm’s way and we save literally billions of dollars that we could be using elsewhere, like maybe our 15 trillion dollar debt? Since our debt is so high we can’t be out waging wars because we need to pay off the debt instead of spending more money. Anyone who owes money to a bank knows that it’s much better and easier to pay off the debt then go out and spend more money and create a bigger debt. It would be best for the United States to pull all resources out of Afghanistan but still provide some financial aid.

Position Essay RUBRIC:

A quality will essay will

•open by setting up a context for the question--briefly explain why the unites States is fighting a war in Afghanistan, clearly done

•develop a position or specific answer to the question that precisely states how the United States should proceed in Afghanistan, clearly done

•use two criteria of the Just War Theory to analyze to what extent the U.S.'s involvement in Afghanistan is a Just War, clearly done

•use three Perspectives to support your explanation of why our involvement in the war benefits or harms Afghanis, all three perspectives referenced

•use three different Perspectives to support your explanation of why the war benefits or harms Americans three perspectives referenced

•draw supporting information from the articles studied in class which are posted on Moodle, some articles referenced

•wrap up the essay by restating the key reasons why your position is the best way for the U.S. to proceed in Afghanistan. Focused summary made

•organize your ideas in extended power paragraphs, competently done

•establish the credibility of sources, sources NOT credited

•cite sources internally and in a Works Cited, NOT done

•edit language errors from writing, minor spelling, grammar and other language usage errors

•post the essay on Student Recommendations done