Originally Posted by Supreme

Also, by 'illegal occupation', what do you mean? Is occupation of another land ever legal? Of course not.

Well, yes. It is perfectly possible for an occupation to be legal. In the case of Afghanistan the US and NATO have an explicit UN mandate. They also have the explicit permission of what is the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan.

Legality isn't the issue here, it is whether NATO involvement in this war is 1. moral and 2. effective.

Originally Posted by islamiclife

The whole things is tied to Islam something which you people always try to put aside and hide behind stupid irrelevant points.

I disagree. It is naive to think the US is willing to expend blood and treasure in order to 'save' people from 'Islam'. Islam is not the core issue here at all. After all, the US has perfectly good relations with the overwhelming majority of Muslim nations, including those that more fully implement Islamic rulings, such as Saudi Arabia.

US involvement in the Afghan war is much more about real-politik than about ideology. The US would be perfectly willing to tolerate Islamic rule, if it did not consider such rule a threat to its national security. It does consider the Taliban a threat, while it does not consider Saudi regime a threat.

I think it is a mistake to think US foreign policy (let alone military interventions) are guided by some anti-Islamic ideology. The mere fact that they invaded Iraq to topple what was essentially a secular and socialist dictator should show us as much. Iraq is considerably more 'Islamic' now than it was in the Saddam-era.

Originally Posted by Guestfellow

Well what I meant is the Afghans never had the chance to establish how they want to rule their country. The international community makes matter worse. The Taliban would not have gotten in power if the America did not hand them over weapons. Now the Taliban have been removed, and now the Afghans have a government that are just as corrupt.

It is a pointless process. Nothing is working.

Yeah .

Some people want to idealize this conflict and frame it as a war of 'Islam' vs. 'the West'. This happens both in the West and among Muslims. It is turned into a lot more than it really is IMHO.

But lets be honest here, there is a civil war going on in Afghanistan. If all Western forces would leave tomorrow there would still be a war going on. Just like the war continued after the Soviets left in 1989. The Taliban never controlled the whole country. Nor are they likely to control the whole country any time soon were the US to 'cut and run'. If only they would actually. At least then there'd be a real government with which you can talk and negotiate. Chaos is the last thing the US wants, because it is in such an environment that extremists like Al-Qaeda can thrive.