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The United States’ Response in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan

With the world becoming increasingly globalized, it means that what happens in one part of the world has repercussions on other parts of the world. The United States is one of the world’s largest economies and also has one of the most significant military forces. In times of threats and difficulties, the United States has often been called on to intervene either diplomatically or with military intervention. Such risks include civil war and terrorist threats. In some instances, the interventions succeed while in other cases it fails.

The threat of terror is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges that the world faces today. The United States is all too familiar with this problem. The attack on the World Trade Center on the 9th of September 2001 is still fresh in the minds of many people, and it is what precipitated the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States with the support of other countries such as Canada and Australia (Gardner).

Afghanistan was invaded since it was considered to be the home of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda who were the perpetrators of terrorist attacks on US soil as well as twin attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-salaam. Osama Bin Laden was the leader of the Al-Qaeda who was wreaking havoc across the world and creating chaos and panic. The death toll from the attack on the twin towers stood at 2996 people including passengers on board the hijacked planes, responders, police, those working in the twin towers as well as the terrorists themselves.

The primary tactic that was employed in the intervention in Afghanistan was military operations beginning in October of 2001. The Taliban had taken control of many of Afghanistan major cities and starting with covert operations led by the Central Intelligence Agency, the US and other military forces were able to take control of the cities. They then went ahead to build military bases near the major cities. Many of the Taliban were not captured; they escaped into nearby Pakistan and other mountainous regions within Afghanistan,

There were sustained military operations to flush out insurgents who remained surprisingly resilient, especially from 2003 to 2005. They declared that they were ready to rise against the US soldiers and other troops who had invaded their country. They launched rocket attacks and raids against the troops. The US troops responded with renewed spirit launching rocket attacks and air strikes in enemy regions. The Taliban were also fighting against the Afghan forces whom they considered American puppets.

After the September 11 attacks, the US had demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban agreed to do so on condition that the US gave proof of his involvement in the attack. This angered the US government under President Bush, and they considered this tantamount to an admission of guilt by the Taliban. Negotiations were not going to work, and this provoked the invasion of Afghanistan by the US military troops, with other NATO countries joining the fight later (Williams).

The decision to invade was to disband terrorist camps that were all over Afghanistan. Even though the terrorist cells were located in Afghanistan, they could carry out deadly attacks around the globe, with the United States being of particular interest to them. The invasion was, therefore, to weed out the problem right from the roots. After thirteen years of fighting, President Obama’ s administration came up with a comprehensive plan to bring back US troops to their home country leaving behind residual forces. The deal with the Afghanistan government was that it would ensure that its territory was not used by any terrorist activity. By the end of the war, the number of casualties numbered tens of thousands including the terrorists, Afghan troops and the peacekeeping forces including US troops.

The military offensive tactics in Afghanistan can be said to be successful with the terrorist cells were mostly wiped out. The main lesson that can be learned from the Afghanistan invasion is that in pursuing foreign policy, it is important to be aggressive as the fight against terror is a dynamic one that requires the asking of hard questions and decisive action. Terror is a vice that has spread throughout the world; hence there needs to be intensified responses in the fight against terror.

While the operation in Afghanistan was mostly successful, the United States in Sierra Leone had dismal results in comparison. Sierra Leone is a small country in the West of Africa. The civil war in the country began in March of 1991 after the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attempted to overthrow the reigning government under President Joseph Momoh (Jentzsch et al 756). The attempted coup marked the beginning of a long and bloody civil war that would last for eleven years and would see countless atrocities meted out mostly on innocent civilians.

During the civil war, millions were driven out of their homes due to fighting. Young boys were trained to be child soldiers and underage girls married off. Many were raped, their limbs chopped off and many more were killed. There are not enough words to describe the human rights abuses that went on in Sierra Leone at the time. One warlord led ‘Operation No Living Thing’ in which all life in Sierra Leone was to be destroyed. Blood diamonds fuelled the war (Omeje 115) which was backed by troops allied to Charles Taylor, president of neighboring Liberia.

Britain was the first to intervene in its former colony’s war, and many other countries sent peacekeeping troops in an attempt to quell the fighting. The United States, however, did not take part in this and instead took on a rather startling stance. It proposed peace talks between the rebels and the country’s leadership as a way to regain peace and stability in the state. No amount of discussion could alleviate the grievous and irreparable harm that had been done to the people of Sierra Leone.

The main reason as to why the peace did not work was that the country’s people felt that the United States was not as concerned to seek justice for the African state as they were for other countries such as Kosovo. The United States has no strategic interest in Sierra Leone, and this mainly influenced its lack of interest in the civil war. The country just had no bearing on any of its national interests.

From the case of Sierra Leone, there are lessons that can be learned in the area of foreign policy going forward. The first is that all human beings should be treated equally. Intervention should be based on justice and the need to save the life of innocent people. Response should not be about vested interests such as oil in Afghanistan. There is a significant contrast in the way the United States dealt with Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, and this provides insight on what needs to be done especially in international policy going forward.

Works Cited

Gardner, Hall. American Global Strategy and the’war on Terrorism’. Routledge, 2017.

Jentzsch, Corinna, Stathis N. Kalyvas, and Livia Isabella Schubiger. “Militias in civil wars.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59.5 (2015): 755-769.

Omeje, Kenneth. “Greed or Grievance?: Diamonds, Rent-Seeking and the Civil War in Sierra Leone (1991–2002).” Extractive Economies and Conflicts in the Global South. Routledge, 2017. 111-124.

Williams, Michael. The good war: NATO and the liberal conscience in Afghanistan. Springer, 2016.