Historically, Afghanistan has been ruled by various forces, including Macedonia, Persia, Greece, the Arab Empire, etc., and many powerful empires have been established to invade other countries, so Afghanistan has been a place of war since ancient times. Afghanistan took off after the First World War.
Independence from British rule, but since then, there have been many wars. It has experienced many regime changes, such as the Afghan Empire, the Republic of Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Basically, it has been in a civil war in which various forces are constantly changing, and warlords of various factions are everywhere.
1978, the pro-Soviet People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan overthrew the former government through a coup and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, but it was overthrown by Amin who was hostile to the Soviet Union in less than a year. 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in order to get rid of Amin. After nine years of brutal war, it still failed to achieve a fundamental victory, and finally withdrew its troops in 1988. The invasion of Afghanistan also indirectly led to
The disintegration of the Soviet Union. In fact, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is very similar to that of the United States. During this period, many foreign forces began to enter Afghanistan under the banner of jihad to resist the Soviet invasion, and it was at this time that bin Laden and Al Qaeda first entered Afghanistan and took root.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan naturally entered a state of civil war, but a force called the Taliban in Afghanistan began to grow because
At first, the Taliban was a radical student movement, under the banner of overthrowing warlords, realizing democracy and revitalizing the economy, so it won the support of many people and developed rapidly. Finally, around 1996, it controlled more than 90% of Afghanistan, became the actual ruling regime, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The remaining opposition formed the Northern Alliance, controlled the remaining 65,438+00% area and continued the civil war with the Taliban.
During the Taliban's rule, it adopted an extreme Islamic way, which caused great economic and cultural losses. But because the civil war has never stopped, the country is still in chaos. However, the most important thing is that the Taliban acquiesced in and even directly supported the activities of many western-recognized terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, which led to the proliferation of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan.
Until 200 1 the 9 1 1 event broke out. The U.S. government once asked the Taliban regime to hand over the members of relevant terrorist organizations, but the Taliban directly refused, officially characterizing the Taliban and Afghanistan as "supporting terrorism." Subsequently, the United States and its allies formally declared war on Afghanistan on June 7, 10. The Northern Alliance of Afghanistan launched the war in Afghanistan, aiming at overthrowing the Taliban regime and eliminating terrorist organizations including al-Qaeda. It quickly overthrew the Taliban regime and took control of most areas. With the end of the transfer of power in Kandahar, the last stronghold of the Taliban, Afghanistan has basically achieved domestic reunification. With the support of the United States, Afghanistan established the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and held elections.
Of course, in fact, the Taliban has not been eliminated. Together with other terrorist organizations supporting the Taliban and local forces, it went underground and started guerrilla warfare for more than ten years. This is why the United States has been stationed in Afghanistan. Although 20 1 1 bin Laden was killed, Al Qaeda's activities in Afghanistan and neighboring countries have not stopped. Afghanistan is still in a state of frequent wars and unrest. Terrorist activities have occurred from time to time, and warlords in remote areas have not stopped fighting. In other words, the purpose of the United States and its allies to launch the war in Afghanistan has only been partially realized, and Afghanistan has not ushered in real peace.
When you know the whole story, you can probably understand why the United States launched the war in Afghanistan and why it still stationed troops in the domestic opposition. In fact, when the invasion of Afghanistan was launched, because the 9 1 1 incident just happened, the domestic support for the war in the United States was unprecedented. Almost all Americans support retaliation against Al Qaeda and its supporter, the Taliban regime. Of course, the war was crowned in the name of overthrowing dictatorship and bringing democracy and peace to Afghanistan, but in fact, launching the war in Afghanistan at the beginning was really a very simple and direct "revenge".
However, it is not enough to abandon the war after the war. The Taliban regime in power in Afghanistan was overthrown by the United States, and the United States was responsible for helping Afghans establish a new western-style democratic regime, taking into account the ethnic and religious issues that local authorities were responsible for. Therefore, after the establishment of such a regime, many people were still dissatisfied, so the civil war continued, and the United States had to sit down and help the new Afghan regime clear some hostile forces. At the same time, the terrorist organizations hidden in the dark have not been eliminated, and Americans will stay and continue to fight terrorism. In this way, Americans will stay in Afghanistan for more than ten years, during which negative incidents such as prisoner abuse scandals and injuries to civilians continue to break out. At this time, the domestic support in the United States gradually cooled down, and the voice of opposition began to increase gradually, and even eventually became the mainstream. However, if we withdraw our troops directly, we will inevitably throw Afghanistan into the abyss of all-out civil war again, and then the Americans will oppose it, so the US military will remain in Afghanistan awkwardly, and we can't get rid of it until today.
Of course, from a deeper perspective, Afghanistan is located at the junction of Europe and Asia and has been a strategic location since ancient times. The Soviet Union's intervention in Afghan affairs and its final direct invasion were also aimed at expanding its influence in this region. American affairs in Afghanistan are an important link between East Asia, Central Asia and even Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Most obviously, the US military aircraft taking off from its base in Afghanistan can attack a wide range of strategies, including the Far East and China, so the presence of the United States in Afghanistan is one of its important strategies. To put it bluntly, we can contain Russia in the world, China in the east, interfere in Middle East affairs in the northwest and control Southeast Asia in the southeast. This is an important fortress, you can look around. Although the Obama administration promised to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 20 14, we all know that Afghanistan will definitely become another overseas garrison base like South Korea, Japan, Germany and Italy in the future.
Finally, Afghanistan is not short of resources, but thousands of years of war have left Afghanistan in a very backward and underdeveloped state. The resources discovered in China include a large number of rare metals, ores (including all kinds of precious stones) and coal resources. The northern part is also considered to have huge oil and natural gas reserves, but most of the resources have not been developed on a large scale, and oil is extremely scarce. So no matter what others say, the United States launched the war in Afghanistan, certainly not for oil, because Afghanistan does not produce oil at all (at least it has not been confirmed).