As our class has begun to discuss what war is good for, I have been increasingly interested in the fighting going on in the Middle East and when, if ever, it will end. Earlier today I watched this video on the worsening situation in southern Afghanistan. As of now there are 39,000 troops stationed in the country. According to several generals they are seeing an increased lose of control due to the Taliban's power in a few areas. The generals blame this on having too few troops. Consequently, 8,000 more Marines will be arriving in Afghanistan in the coming weeks. The Generals interviewed in the video say this will mean more casualties as they begin to break down the Taliban's control. Currently, they are searching for a man who goes by 'Zakir'. He was released from Guantanamo Bay 2 years ago and is a "serious threat" to the military effort in Afghanistan. Along with this, there have been more and more occurrences of road side bombs, which result in the lose of many innocent lives.
The video as a whole brought me back to the first artifacts we observed in this unit. My table group studied pictures which presented one main question: can war be fought without harming those that are not the direct targets of violence? In Afghanistan, one can easily answer this question with a strong NO. With the constant risk of road side and suicide bombs, insurgent violence, and Taliban kidnappings every day people are constantly falling victim to this war for no reason. As the number of troops rises from 39,000 to 47,000 it is hard to tell whether the unnecessary violence will go down or up. U.S. Generals conceded the fact that more of their troops will be falling in the future, but what about the innocent Afghan people? They play no bigger part in this war than I do, yet they wake up every morning fearful for their lives. In my opinion, no human should have to go through the day worried about whether they will be the unsuspecting victim of war time violence. In our modern day, it is the responsibility of every human being to try and right the wrongs of our past by working to eliminate unnecessary casualties. Hopefully, American efforts in Afghanistan will work towards this cause instead of against it.
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This is a very tragic part of our involvement in the middle east. In my opinion, the amount of innocent civilians killed almost defeats the purpose of our involvment in the first place. But I guess there is no way of knowing how bad the situation there might be if we as a nation chose to remain isolationists. This seems to narrow down to the question, "do the ends justify the means." Once we reach the end, I believe we will know.
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