Why are the British and Americans in Afghanistan?

[Seafarer1966]

I was just reading an internet newspaper article about Afghanistan. I asked myself this question and I really don't know why Britain and America have troops out there. It's not our country. Al Quaeda aren't based there and haven't launched any of their assaults on us from there. The CIA trained and equipped the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union for years. So why are we there? Anyone enlighten me? Sensible answers only please

[Skreecheeboy]

America thinks opium is a blight on the planet and our government agrees. That's the only reason I can think of.

[Seafarer1966]

Good points Legend and Skreech on the drugs.

Surely it makes more sense to pay the poppy farmers to not grow opium poppies or to grow something else. It must be cheaper than all those troops, tanks, logistics bases, warplanes etc.

Or....are we missing something? Is there oil or any other rich mineral reserves out there? Do the Americans want this war (George Bush Senior made a profit out of the Vietnam War.....loads of financial interests in arms companies....in fact the Bush family still has got lots of fingers in lots of pies.....American weapons and munitions manufacturers and construction companies rebuilding Iraq to name a couple).

North Korea poses more of a threat than any country (except Iran I suppose in the present political climate). It has nuclear missiles capable of reaching Taiwan and Japan and is developing inter-continental ballistic missiles that will soon be able to reach America and Europe. So why aren't we invading North Korea? It doesn't add up.

Any views anyone?

[paulos66]

Perhaps it's to do with nearly all 9/11 terrorists being from Saudi
or more likely it's an extremely strategic area for an oil pipeline -

[paulos66]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0, ,579401,00.html

[Seafarer1966]

Thats a great article Paulos. Thanks to the others as well for a well reasoned and articulate discussion. I do tire of the 'jokers' on this site who post banal and frankly quite childish pieces.

[Gromit]

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is a proposed natural gas pipeline being developed by the Asian Development Bank. The pipeline will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India.

Kick the Taliban and Al Quaeda out. Install a friendly puppet (Karzai) move all that oil, make lots of money. God Bless America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan _Pipeline

[jno]

the 9/11 attacks on New York were carried out by al-Qaeda, who were indeed based in Afghanistan and supported by the Taliban, who were the Afghan rulers at the time. (The actual attackers were mostly Saudi extremists, like bin Laden.) The attack wasn't much to do with oil at the time, it was to overthrow the Taliban, root out al-Qaeda and in effect to get revenge for 9/11.

It seemed to go easily, which I suppose is why they decided to launch an attack on Iraq as well - and that, I think, was about oil. But two wars at a time overstretched them (and us) and we're on the way to losing both of them, I think, and leaving the Middle East/South Asia in a bigger mess than we found it.

[4GS]

here is the mission statement as set out by the U.S Department of State.l

Pick the bones out of it

[Gromit]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/367 35.stm

[dot.hawkes]

blimey thought this thread must have been in the news section then!!! (sorry if that was banal and childish) : ((

[stewey]

As an aside, it isn't just the US and the UK in Afghanistan. For example, in 2005 the UK had 481 troops there and the US had 89, while Canada had 992. Visit this site and scroll down to 'ISAF Contributing Nations': quite interesting.

[stewey]

Sorry!
http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/040628- factsheet.htm

[paulos66]

9/11 was the excuse the americans were waiting for, I firmly believe it was for oil and not to get a sick old man on dialysis

[4GS]

There's oil in Afghanistan paulos66?
I didn't see much evidence of that when I was there in 2002

[Gromit]

There are 26,000 US troops remain in Afghanistan.

As of Jan 2007, there had been 342 US troops killed and 1,026 seriously injured.

As of June 2007, there had been 278 coalition troops killed
and 834 seriously injured.

[Gromit]

4GS

Can you spot the connection between these links and 'Enduring Freedom'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/367 35.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan _Pipeline

[Gromit]

Try again...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/367 35.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan _Pipeline

[paulos66]

4GS read my post before trying to be clever - it doesn't suit you soldier boys aren't paid to think, you should be good at doing what you are told without questioning not having opinion- soldiers aren;t really meant to understand the reason behind the conflict . I never said there was oil in Afghanistan but as I'm feeling pedantic you may like to tell me what you used to power your vehicles whilst over there

[stewey]

There's a lot of oil over there....................poppy oil!