Afghanistan War

A war that still rages on today and that has lasted for over 1200 years set in a land of the extremes.

It was 1368 years ago, in the year 642 A.D. when the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan began, it was shortly after the conquest of Persia which was completed and the Sassanid Empire had fallen under the raid of the Arab Muslims who where expanding. Since the final sword slash of this war in 1187 there have been three Anglo-Afghan wars, a Soviet conflict and numerous civil wars which are important to know about so that one can understand the situation that makes up the scene of the nowadays Afghanistan.

Since 2001 there has been a coalition conflict of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) violently struggling against the terrorist extremist groups: Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This conflict had its peak on the 9/11 attacks when the United-States of America launched the operation: Enduring Freedom willing to counteract the assault and to preserve the western civilizations of further offensives. The original aim was to find the high ranking Al-Qaeda leader Osama-bin-Laden and to end the terrorist regime but since then it has furthermore changed into an invasive take and secure mission on grand scale covering all critical countries. This however is proving to be much more complex than it sounds, fighting against guerilla warriors equipped with weapons from Russia.

The German government decided on the 16-20 December 2001 under the Red-Green Coalition SPD chancellor Gerhard-Schröder that Germany will assist and cooperate with the US forces in the Operation Enduring freedom as well as join the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). Since then Germany has been the third largest supplier of troops and goods in the war after the USA and Canada with about 3000 current soldiers. Today Germany has taken full responsibility over the Northern regions of the country; also there has been close working together with the local Afghanistan army and police forces. Germany has helped organizing the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) that is there for rebuilding destroyed homes and providing a save living environment alongside with a stable local governing. They have also taken part in the eradication of opium as a major intake resource.

An incident occurred mid last year where an armored patrol tank was attacked, got stuck in mud and turned over unfortunately into a muddy water hole. Three Bundeswehr soldiers were trapped and one of them was able to free himself the other two drowned. Merkel reacted to this by deploying another 1000 soldiers but not only because of the incident but also because of the last restock of the US troops that are planning to move out latest 2012.

The Germans population is split among whether or not the Bundeswehr should take a part in the War the one side says: “We should forget our history and send more troops down there and help the Americans” while on the other hand the others say: “Why should we help the Americans we have other problems in the economy to focus on and the German troops aren’t doing much anyhow so we might as well bring them all back”.