The real reasons we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq?

[Neomalthusian]

After Saudi and Egyptian terrorists flew planes into buildings in New York, we went to war in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, and a little bit later then went into Iraq. Why did we actually do this?

Afghanistan has been the greatest illicit opium producer in the entire world, ahead of Burma (Myanmar), the "Golden Triangle", and Latin America since 1992, excluding the year 2001.

Source: "UNODC 2010 world drug report, page 43" (PDF). Retrieved November 30, 2011.​

During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons in 1999,. However, in July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. As a result of this ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.

Sources: "Press conference on afghanistan opium survey 2004" (Press release). United Nations. November 18, 2004. Retrieved January 14, 2006. United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) (PDF). Annual Opium Poppy Survey 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2008. Taliban's Ban On Poppy A Success, U.S. Aides Say, By BARBARA CROSSETTE nytimes.com, Published: May 20, 2001​

 

[lizzie]

Being that it was GW Bush, I really believe his purpose was that of a war on terror, and not for oil or for the opium poppies. Imo, it was misguided, but I think he had honorable intentions.

 

[German guy]

I think most, if not all of these reasons were crucial. Why not killing several birds with one stone, when you can?

I believe fighting islamist terrorists was one reason, at least in case of Afghanistan. Conquering a better geo-strategic position in the Middle East was another reason for both wars. Liberating the peoples living there from horrible tyrannies was a reason too. And of course, nobody complained that it would bring access to more oil sources either.

I don't think the Bush administration was stupid, so they probably considered all of these reasons. But which were crucial? Would we/the US have gone in, even if there was no oil? I don't know.

Regardless of that, I think the Afghanistan effort was just, while I believe the decision to invade Iraq was wrong: It was poorly executed, the reasons cited for it were obviously flawed propaganda (WMD) and it was immensely expensive. Maybe history will rule sooner or later that it was right, after all, because it worked out well. But at the moment, I still have doubts.

 

[ThePlayDrive]

Other.

We went to Afghanistan for terrorism. More specifically, we went to get revenge and to eliminate any further threats from Al-Qaeda to our national security interests.

We went to Iraq to eliminate the threat we feared existed within the country, to spread democracy and to help George Bush prove himself to his father.

 

[rathi]

Afghanistan was purely a political response to 9/11. You weren't going to stop Saudi hijackers by blowing up the Taliban, but domestic political response demanded blood so Afghanistan was the obvious target. Rumsfeld also wanted an opportunity to implement his military doctrine.

As for Iraq, its still hard to figure out why even after the fact. The WMD excuse was an obviously wrong, but so were the claims that we were trying to snarf up more oil. Bush wanting to show up daddy is a possibility, although impossible to prove. Certain defense contractors certainly made massive profits off the war, but that doesn't explain the whole situation either. The lack of anyone understanding why we actually were in Iraq definitely played a large part in the catastrophe.