Lydia+E.--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

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The United States is fighting the Afghan war because of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The Americans entered Afghanistan because “the Taliban [were] harboring Al-Qaeda (Kissinger),” who killed a lot of Americans in the attacks on September 11. After the attacks the Americans went after Al-Qaeda. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The Americans are still in Afghanistan, although they already killed bin Laden. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">I think we should leave Afghanistan because this whole war is really expensive and the US could need the money and it seems like winning the war is nearly impossible.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">The Afghan war doesn’t fit into the Just War criteria. Afghanistan is not worth and not necessary. We spend a lot of money on this war. Bilmes, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy Harvard Kennedy School, stated that we already “spent more than 2.5 trillion on the [war in] Afghanistan (Bilmes), which definitely is more than is worth for us//.// ” For a war to be a just war “the reason for going to war […] cannot [...] be for […] punishing people (Criteria for Just War),” but that is exactly the reason for this war. “We entered Afghanistan to punish the Taliban (Kissinger).” Therefore Afghanistan is no Just War.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">For Afghanistan it would be better but also worse if the US left. Peter Galbraith, the Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation said that “America can leave Afghanistan whenever, and it won’t make that big of a difference (Arat).” That means that for Afghanistan it doesn’t really matter whether we stay or leave. But the situation could also get worse for Afghanistan. “The United States had abandoned Afghanistan once before, after its war with the Soviet Union in 1989, with disastrous consequences – the rise of the Taliban (qtd. in Stacy G.),” thinks Ryan Crocker, the Ambassador of Afghanistan. Things like this could happen again if the US left. Lara Olsen, a research fellow at the Center for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta, thinks that we should stay and wants “to provide more humanitarian aid to the Afghanistan people (Corbin).“ But we already spent so much time in Afghanistan with this goal, without much success. We only spend a lot of money and loose soldiers. I think that we can’t reach the goal and should leave. Other than that Ismail Salami, an Iranian writer, lexicographer, Iranologist and Middle East expert, stated in his article that the “[militancy is growing] as a result of the US military presence in the country (Salami).” If it doesn’t matter or would be even better for Afghanistan if we left, we should leave instead of risking lives and spending or wasting more money. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">If it would benefit or harm Afghanistan is not unique. There are reason why the US should leave and other why they should stay.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">For American leaving Afghanistan is a good idea. We spend so much money and lives for Afghanistan and it is not worth it. Dick Durbin, the senior U.S. Senator from Illinois, says that we should leave Afghanistan, because “winning the war is impossible and would result in a longer war (Durbin qtd. in Sarah H.).” That’s why we should leave and not send troops over. We already spent “hundreds of billions of dollars and [lost] over 1,600 American service members (Durbin qtd. in Sarah H.).” It is not worth to loose more soldiers and money. We should spend the money to improve our own country.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Public’s opinions should also be respected. And the citizens from both countries’ think that we should leave. Kissinger, who was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, stated, “more than 60 percent of Americans believe that the United States should withdraw from Afghanistan (Kissinger).” We have a constitutional republic in the U.S. so the public’s opinion is important and should be respected. The Afghans, “saying the country is moving in the wrong direction have increase by 8 percent over the past year (Inderfurth),” mentioned Inderfurth, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Afghans don’t think that their country is on the right way after one year, in which the U.S. spent a lot of lives, times and money, which they could use and also need for their own country, in Afghanistan. That means that thy think the Americans may leave. Because neither the Americans nor the Afghan citizens want the United States to stay in Afghanistan we should leave.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">After looking at all these criteria you can see that American should probably leave Afghanistan. It would benefits the United States and it is controversial for Afghanistan. But we already tried to help a lot and should focus more on our own country. It is time that we fight for us, for our freedom, to stable our government and not for another country. 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 credited •cite sources internally and in a Works Cited, done with minor errors •edit language errors from writing, minor spelling, grammar and other language usage errors •post the essay on Student Recommendations done

Works Cited:

"Criteria for a Just War." // printed Handout from class //

Kissinger, Henry A. "How to exit Afghanistan without creating wider conflict." //The Washington Post//. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <http://www.washingtonpost.com>.

Inderfurth, Karl F., and Theodore L. Eliot, Jr. "Afghans in Transition." //The// //Opinion Page//. The New York Times, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com>.

I., Arat. "Peter Galbraith." //Perspective on Afghanistan - Think Tanks/Academia//. BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies wikispaces, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. <http://buchholtzsidoramericanstudies.wikispaces.com/>.

H., Sarah. "Senator Dick Durbin." //Perspective on Afghanistan - U.S. Government:// //Executive and Legislative Branches//. BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies.wikispaces, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <http://buchholtzsidoramericanstudies.wikispaces.com/>.

"Lara Olsen." //Perspectives on Afghanistan - Non Government Organizations (NGOs)// //assisting Afghanistan’s Economic Development//. BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies wikispaces, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. <http://buchholtzsidoramericanstudies.wikispaces.com/>.

Bilmes, Linda J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. "American's costly war machine." //Los Angeles Times//. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <http://www.articles.latimes.com>.

Salami, Ismail. "Obama's Cyclopean Look On Afghan War -OpEd." //Eurasiareview//. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <www.eurasiareview.com/>.