Those invasions were misguided and unnecessary
Afghanistan seemed prudent at the time, but given how quickly Bush abandoned the war on terror there, it was not that critical
Bin Laden ended up in Pakistan and the Taliban are still waiting in the wings
Both invasions were necessary and accomplished a lot of good of U.S. security. Two threatening regimes were removed from power. Saddam had survived the post-Gulf War years of containment. He had essentially wrestled free of most sanctions and the weapons embargo that had been put on to contain him. He was starting to make Billions of dollars a year through illegal oil sales. Money talks, and oil is money. It was only a matter of time before SADDAM would succeed in rebuilding his past military capabilities. The United States and other member states had
responsibility to bring Iraq into compliance with UN Security council resolutions in regards to WMD and remaining problems resulting from Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait was owed Billions of dollars in damages and thousands of Kuwaiti's were still missing and unaccounted for. As mentioned before, the United States was already engaged in active combat of one sort of another every year in Iraq due to Iraqi violations from 1991 to 2003. The containment mechanisms of sanctions and the weapons embargo had fallen apart. Anything and everything were flowing across the Turkish/Iraqi border, the Syrian/Iraqi border, the Jordanian/Iraqi border and even the Iranian/Iraqi border. There was also no way to know what Iraq still had in terms of WMD or when they would develop new programs. Inspectors had been kicked out of the country and even if they were later let back in, they would never be able to properly due their job due to Iraqi harassment. In hindsight, Saddam should have been removed in 1991, but the general feeling back then was that the defeat in the Gulf War was too big for Saddam to survive. No one seriously believe he would still be leading Iraq by 1996. An internal replacement by Iraqi's would be far less costly than an invasion. But unfortunately, Saddam survived, and the means of containing him crumbled. That made it a necessity to remove Saddam. Failing to remove him in 2003 or soon after would have resulted in the rebuilding of Saddam's military capabilities, both conventional and un-conventional and a new crises in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia which would put the entire global economy in jeopardy. It was the United States and other members states of the UN to never let what happened to Kuwait in August 1990 ever happen again. It was clear that the only way to insure it would never happen again by 2003, was through Saddam's removal. Saddam's potential means of again threatening the global economy's most vital region made regime change the only option.
Every administration since Bush left office has taken events in Iraq seriously, although Obama made the massive mistake of prematurely withdrawing US forces at the end of 2011. US troops have been in Iraq since 2014, and the results have been fantastic. The United States has finally essentially achieved its goals with the new Iraqi Government, stable enough within its own country, and not a threat to its neighbors. The new Iraqi government has even become a bridge for discussion and negotiation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. All these things are good for the region and the world, and would not be possible if Saddam were still in power. If Saddam had remained in power, the United States would already be fighting or facing a far more costly war with Saddam's regime armed with new weapons easily purchased on the world market. The cost of dealing with a rearmed Saddam would mean far heavier US casualties, and far heavier civilian casualties, let alone the risk to Kuwaiti oil and Saudi oil so vital to the global economy. So in the long run, the removal of Saddam has been a big win for Iraqi's, the region, and the world.
Not invading Afghanistan in 2001 would have just let the terrorist problem fester and get worse. The United States made a mistake of abandoning Afghanistan after the Soviets left in 1989. The results were not good, and help to lead to the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington D.C.. In order to prevent such attacks of that scale from happening again, at minimum the United States had to remove the Taliban government. In the years since 2001, the United States has helped the new Afghan government and military grow in size and capability. There are 34 provinces in Afghanistan, each with a provincial capital. Over the past 18 years the Taliban have only taken one of those provincial capitals, but lost it to the Afghanistan military within weeks. This is a far cry from the Taliban's capabilities in the mid-1990s, when it only took them two years to take over 90% of the provincial capitals in the country. So the U.S. invasion has been good for Afghanistan, the region, and the world. The terrorist threat is reduced, the Afghan military and government continue to improve their capabilities every year. The Afghanistan military is suffering heavy casualties, since the United States drew down its forces from 100,000 to just 14,000. But, despite the drawdown of U.S. forces, the Afghan military continues to hold on to all the provincial capitals in the country. They now just need to reduce the casualties their taking in fighting the Taliban and increase their control and coverage of the more rural areas of the country.
Counter insurgency and nation building are difficult projects that often require lots of time and persistence to work. A decade at a minimum, but usually much more than that. The investment in both Afghanistan and Iraq has been worth it because of the national and global security threats involved. Back in 2008, there were 180,000 US military personal in Iraq and 35,000 US personal in Afghanistan. A combined 215,000. Today, those numbers are 5,000 and 14,000. A combined 19,000. That just goes to show how much things have improved.
They were threats to nobody outside their borders
Many nations still around today with despotic leaders
Bush’s rapid abandonment of Afghanistan and Mission Accomplished déclaration showed how little he understood the complexities of nation building
We are still there today
Cost us close to 10,000 US lives, 100s of thousand of Iraq and Afghan lives and trillions of dollars that could have been better spent elsewhere
Tell that to people in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel. Kuwait was invaded and annexed. The first invasion and annexation of another country since Adolf Hitler did it in the 1940s! There are tens of thousands of people in Kuwait still missing from that action. The cut off of Kuwaiti and Iraqi oil in 1990 caused the 1991 recession. The environmental damage of blowing up all the Kuwaiti oil wells and dumping stored oil into the Persian Gulf was immense. Saudi Arabia had its territory briefly invaded during the 1991 Gulf War, and there was a daily barrage of Scud Missiles raining down on various cities in the Kingdom. Same with Israel, as the whole country huddled in basements with their gas masks on for weeks on end as Iraqi Scud Missiles penetrated Israeli air space and territory. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers were Killed by Saddam's forces. Multiple cities in Iran were bombed by the Iraqi Air Force and attacked by Ballistic Missiles. Then there is the most wide spread use of WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION by any leader of a country since World War I. Sarin Gas and Mustard Gas.
Not a threat to anyone outside their borders? Only the most ignorant and delusional of people would make that claim.
The issue is not a despotic leader, the issue is invasions and attacks on four different countries in the region. The use of weapons of mass destruction. The annexation of an independent state. The seizure and sabotage of natural resources vital to the global economy. The damage done to the environment.
There has never been a leader of a country more worthy of regime change since World War II, and that purely based on his activities outside Iraq's borders.
Afghanistan was NEVER abandoned. The total number of troops in Afghanistan DOUBLED as the Invasion of Iraq commenced. The mission accomplish message was just meant to congratulate the troops. It was picked up as a meme by Democrats to attack Bush with, for their own personal political motives.
The person who did not understand NATION BUILDING was Barack Obama who prematurely withdrew troops in 2011, creating the biggest setback of the entire operation.
Yes, the United States is still in Iraq today, but with 5,000 troops instead of the 180,000 that were there in 2008. The United States is still in Afghanistan, but with 14,000 troops down from the 100,000 that were there in 2011. Huge improvements in both cases.
The United States is also still in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Korea. In fact, are troop levels in some of those countries are greater than even Afghanistan in 2019.
Spending on both wars per year from 2001 through 2019 has amounted to just a fraction of the total defense budget each year. As a percentage of GDP, defense spending NEVER topped 5% in any year from 2001 through 2018. In contrast during the peacetime of the 1980s, the United States spent an average of 6% of GDP every year on defense. So on a historical basis, the wars were cheap.
In terms of human cost, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan cost over a 1 million lives and led to massive numbers of refugees in Pakistan and Iran. By comparison with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, total lives lost in Afghanistan, civilian life is less than 10% of the 9 year Soviet invasion and Occupation.
As for Iraq, far more Iraqi's died in the Iran/Iraq war than have died in violence since 2003. In addition, military operations of this scale, done in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam produced civilian casualties that were in the millions. Iraq's losses since 2003 are tiny compared to that. They are also tiny compared to the 1.7 million deaths caused by Saddam's actions from 1979 to 2003.
U.S. losses in terms those killed by violence or dying from wounds resulting from violence is about 5,100 for both Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The other deaths were from accidents and natural causes that occur to military personal everywhere, regardless of whether their in the United States or a foreign country. Even adding those in, the total has still not reached 7,000 after 18 years. Contrast that with U.S. killed by violence losses in World War I, 53,000, World War II 295,000, Korea 36,000, or Vietnam 48,000, and you can see that in many ways the Iraqi and Afghan wars were managed much better.
In ever metric used, in every cost benefit analysis, both operation Iraqi Freedom and operation Enduring Freedom are WINS for the United States, the people of Iraq, the people of Afghanistan, the region these countries are in, as well as the rest of the world.
I don't know anyone who believes that in 2019 these countries or the regions they are in, would benefit from the return of the Taliban to power or the return of Saddam to power.
