Is the war in Afghanistan Justified?

Holbrooke states the US and coalition presence in Afghanistan is not an occupation, but that they are there at the request of the Afghan people

since to abandon it would be to abandon those who have helped us

abandon the gains we have made (e,g, women's education).

But, more self-interestedly, to abandon it now would be to hand a great victory to Islamo-fascism, not merely to the Taliban, but to all the Islamo-fascists all over the Muslim world. And it would be a great blow to America's reputation.

Having identified Al Qaeda as the guilty party in the September 11th attacks, and knowing them to be sheltering in Afghanistan, the United States gave that nation an ultimatum to hand over the culprits, or suffer the consequences. This is normal practice in international law, i don't see that it does any violence to Chapter VII of the UN charter, either, for that matter. The very concept of morality is disgusting to me, so i really have no comment on whether or not this is morally justified. It is justified in law, and that suffices for me. As the government of Afghanistan, then the Taliban, refused to comply, the invasion was justified.

Obama's Af-Pak War Is Illegal
Monday 21 December 2009
by: Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

...

Although the US invasion of Afghanistan was as illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans saw it as a justifiable response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The cover of Time magazine called it "The Right War." Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war but escalating the war in Afghanistan. But a majority of Americans now oppose that war as well.

The UN Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan.

"Operation Enduring Freedom" was not legitimate self-defense under the charter because the 9/11 attacks were crimes against humanity, not "armed attacks" by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after 9/11, or President Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the UN General Assembly.

Bush's justification for attacking Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training terrorists, even though bin Laden did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks until 2004. After Bush demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden to the United States, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said his government wanted proof that bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks before deciding whether to extradite him, according to The Washington Post. That proof was not forthcoming; the Taliban did not deliver bin Laden, and Bush began bombing Afghanistan.

Bush's rationale for attacking Afghanistan was spurious. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the US gave him safe haven. If the new Iranian government had demanded that the US turn over the Shah and we refused, would it have been lawful for Iran to invade the United States? Of course not.

http://www.truth-out.org/1221094

What were the initial causes used to justify an invasion into Afghanistan? Were those causes morally sufficient to justify such an invasion?

How do the causes relate to how the war is currently being fought? Is the actual conduct of war in Afghanistan problematic? If so, why?

H2O MAN wrote:

Not exactly. The battles for Iraq and for AFG are just that, large battles in the huge Global War On Terror (GWOT).
We should not treat GWOT flippantly.

You can't really have a war on terror you know. That's like having a war on bad behavior.

You can have a war on a country, but you can only have an ongoing resistance to a human behavior pattern like terrorism.

H20 MAN wrote:

We are using a totally different and ever evolving approach to fighting Muslim extremist terrorists.

Would you have us fighting like we fought the Germans and the Japanese in WWII?
We could just carpet bomb and nuke a few places of your choosing, that would be easy.

Modern asymmetric warfare is arguably much more destructive since it reduces intentionality and discrimination on the part of soldiers, thus reducing moral responsibility. More innocent people die as a result of drone attacks and long distance targeting.

I don't think the article is absurd at all. If the Taliban were willing to hand over Osama to a third party, is that not a viable option? Shouldn't war only be a necessary last resort? If diplomatic negotiation could have brought Osama to justice (especially considering the ongoing failure to capture Obama), is that not a option worth pursuing? War is utterly destructive. I think it is only fair to the individual rights of those living in Afghanistan that if other alternatives present themselves, morally we have obligation to pursue those other means. Ultimatum? What difference would it make if a third party had kept Osama until he was tried in the International Criminal Court? Wouldn't that had been a far better outcome then killing innocent people?

Well of course I can't, because that involves hypotheticals. But keep these effects in mind:

Beginning of invasion:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/terrorism.afghanistan2

A general source on civilian deaths:

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/10/06/the-imprecision-ofus-bombing-and-the-under-valuation-of-an-afghan-life.html

In between Jan-June 2009, see pg. 3-4 (so recent conduct of the war)

http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/human%20rights/09july31-UNAMA-HUMAN-RIGHTS-CIVILIAN-CASUALTIES-Mid-Year-2009-Bulletin.pdf

So my question to you Setanta is, are the deaths of civilians proportional to the just causes sought? In other words, are benefits of the war (ousting the Taliban, dissmantling Al Qeda and improving human rights) sufficiently proportional to the harms caused?

I have to say no. Though the causes are just, the conduct certainly is not proportional to the just causes. Thus, in my opinion the war is unjustified.

Really? See above. Innocents deaths are the responsibility of failing to comply with the ultimatum? Perhaps the ultimatum was the morally wrong action, considering negotiation terms were presented.

That was then, but technology allows the US to do a much better job of identifying and hitting terrorist targets.
Our drones can see what they are about to kill and our long distance targeting is quite accurate and it's getting better.

The US is not the problem, the problem is that the radical Muslim terrorists have no rules of engagement.
They hide in neighborhoods, use innocent civilians as shields, employ gorilla tactics and they do not wear uniforms.
US troops are doing an incredible job and they need our support and the support of the Obama administration.

our warriors need to leave

Having identified Al Qaeda as the guilty party in the September 11th attacks, and knowing them to be sheltering in Afghanistan, the United States gave that nation an ultimatum to hand over the culprits, or suffer the consequences.

This is normal practice in international law, i don't see that it does any violence to Chapter VII of the UN charter, either, for that matter.

The very concept of morality is disgusting to me, so i really have no comment on whether or not this is morally justified.

It is justified in law, and that suffices for me. As the government of Afghanistan, then the Taliban, refused to comply, the invasion was justified.

WWII USA tactics of strewing tons of incendiaries throughout densely populated cities and starting a firestorm were far more lethal than a drone firing a precision missile at a group of huts.

US Killed 700 Civilians in Pakistan Drone Strikes in 2009
'Year of the Drone Strike' Netted Only Five Actual Militant Leaders

by Jason Ditz, January 02, 2010

On January 1, 2009, a US drone strike killed two senior al-Qaeda leaders, the first in what then President-elect Barack Obama had said would be a dramatic escalation of the aerial bombardment of Pakistan’s tribal area.

And escalate it did. The US launched 44 distinct drone strikes in Pakistan in 2009, far more than in previous years. The pinnacle of America’s drone achievements was in August, when they killed Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Much has been made of the successes, but while the strikes have been regular and they almost always are presented by Pakistan’s intelligence community as having killed “suspects,” the actual successes are few and far between, with only five confirmed kills of real militant leaders, and a handful of unconfirmed claims that usually haven’t panned out.

The vast majority of the deaths, around 700 according to one estimate, have been innocent civilians. With such a massive civilian toll and so little to show for it, it is no wonder that Pakistani people have been up in arms over the continued strikes.

But US officials have rarely commented on the drone strikes, except on those rare occasions when they actually kill someone meaningful, and seem completely ambivalent to the hundreds of innocent people killed in the meantime. The ultimate example of this was June 22-23.

On June 22, the US struck at a house officials called a “suspected militant hideout,” burying a few locals inside. When others rushed to the scene to rescue them, they launched another missile, killing 13 apparently innocent Pakistanis. When they held a funeral procession on June 23, the US hit that too, ostensibly on the belief that Baitullah Mehsud might be among the mourners. He wasn’t, but the attack killed at least 80 more people.

When announcing the December escalation into Afghanistan, President Obama reportedly also approved an escalation of drone strikes into Pakistan. It seems unlikely that the intelligence has gotten any better, however, and civilians across North and South Waziristan are in an understandable panic.


http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/02/us-killed-700-civilians-in-pakistan-drone-strikes-in-2009/

These people live in these areas. These people are simply trying to get rid of the alien hordes that illegally invaded and that have plagued their country with their presence for much too long.