US in Afghanistan Fighting Against ISIS/ISIL (Essay Sample)

US in Afghanistan fighting against ISIS/ISIL
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US in Afghanistan Fighting Against ISIS/ISIL
Introduction
Transnational terrorism threatens all regions in the world, but it is of immediate concern to the government of the United States. After losing significant territories and the subsequent withdrawal of American troops out of Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has regained energy and shifted to Afghanistan. Syria is another nation devastated by terrorists. The situation of terrorism and war in Afghanistan has been aggravated by the ubiquity of social media, which is being used by terrorists to recruit new members and to spread propaganda. The way the United States responds to terrorist activities across the world should be taken seriously by all concerned governments and agencies in the world. For instance, while the United States fights against terrorist activities in Afghanistan, it also provides humanitarian help, coordinates with the defense agencies in the respective countries, and also develops effective communication techniques to curb the terrorists. Now that the American troops in Afghanistan were withdrawn in 2021, it would be an ideal moment to dissect the justification for its presence in the Islamic nation. The presence of the United States in Afghanistan to fight against ISIS/ISIL was justified by the desire of America to flush out the terrorists who have become a global security threat and a source of pain and anguish for Afghanistan civilians.
ISIS/ISIL in Afghanistan
In the Afghanistan setting, the affiliate ISIS group calls itself ISIS-K. The caliphate in Afghanistan was declared in 2015. At that time, the aim of this caliphate was to execute mass-casualty attacks against Afghan civilians in different provinces. The group also had the intention of toppling the government of its neighbor, Pakistan and also to implement attacks in Iran and other states that were deemed as a vanguard of Shias (Tariq et al., 2020). Other aims of the movement were to institute the Sunni Islamic doctrine as the chief religious belief of Afghanistan and dislodge the Taliban which was the main jihadi movement in the country. By the time the United States was withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, ISIS has been greatly annihilated with only small pockets of the terrorist group still attacking civilians in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
Motivations behind ISIS/ISIL Fighters in Afghanistan
While the world sees the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan as unjustified, those joining the terrorist group do so based on certain religious convictions. For instance, most of them are young men and women weighed down by the sense of resentment which arises because of the unfair or unjust treatment of Muslims by the West (Lushenko et al., 2019). This resentment is, therefore, one of the greatest motivators of those joining the terrorist group. Nonetheless, one this resentment is not the only motivator that scholars have established behind the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan. There are many other reasons such as the desire for identity, childhood abuse, and the need for responsibility among others.
Besides, fighters have joined this terror group for various other personal and political reasons. Some have joined because their peers have joined or due to the feeling that being members of the terror group comes with certain benefits. For instance, the Islamic State terror group seeks to come up with a state that is driven by the religion of Islam within Afghanistan. As such, it promises its fighters from all over the world that the new state will provide better living standards and conditions than any other nation in the world (Mentan, 2017). The fact that this information is able to move from one nation to another makes it easy for ISIS to continue getting new recruits from many nations. ISIS is able to access financial resources and proceeds from oil, and this makes it possible for them to manage their activities. Those who seek to join the terror group do so with the promise of a better life and a global appeal that comes with being part of a globally recognized terror group.
Christian Perspective
The surest way that a Christian may look at the problem of ISIS in Afghanistan is by examining whether it qualifies to be genocide or not. Thus, a typical Christian would wonder if there is any justifiable/religious reason as to why ISIS should continue killing innocent people in Afghanistan. However, the bible is always an immediate source of answers to every Christian. For example, in the bible, more specifically the book of Joshua, it appears as though God gives the command for the slaughter of Canaanites by Israel. Israel killed the various occupants of the Promised Land in order to occupy it (Havrelock, 2020). Joshua portrays it as a bloody war where God is seen using his people to carry out some kind of moral judgment against the Canaanites, who were his wicked foes. In pursuit of an answer to the question as to whether God commanded genocide against the occupants of the Promised Land in order to fulfill his promise to the children of Israel, it becomes indispensable to first establish what genocide is and what exactly happened during that time.
A genocide is largely viewed an act involving the deliberate murder of people due to the fact that they belong to a given political, racial or cultural group. As such, it may also include people who practice a particular religion. Whichever way the term genocide is defined, there is always the aspect of deliberate murder of people due to some differences that mat be cultural, political, religious or racial (Spina, 2020). Thus said, it is apparent that the invasion of the land of the Canaanites does not match with the definition of genocide. Initially, it may appear as though God commanded the Canaanites to be destroyed for racial reasons, but a closer look into the matter reveals that the issue of race was far from the command that God had given to Joshua.
The Role of the U.S in Fighting ISIS/ISIL in Afghanistan
The fact that transnational terrorism operates across national borders presents nations with several decision points concerning how and when to act. Such nations as the United States have been forced to intervene at the international level to prevent the emergence or growth of terrorist groups. Such intervention has often manifested in the form of military advice, international aid, as well as the training and counter-terrorism training for foreign governments (Warraich, 2018). Beside their presence in Afghanistan until 2021, Americans have also been in