Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)/Archive 12

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Archive 5

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Archive 10

Semi-protected edit request on 25 September 2015

This edit request to War in Afghanistan (2001–present) has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

5.156.4.100 (talk) 06:07, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

please change (2001-present) to (2001-2014) thanks!

- I think there is merit in your suggestion - especially as there have been several additions that should be in the article War in Afghanistan (2015–present); ⋅people see the "-present" in the title and assume they are in the right place. I know there is a hatnote, but people read the headline, not the detail. Such a change would need consensus - what do others think? - Arjayay (talk) 07:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Not done: page move requests should be made at Wikipedia:Requested moves. See multiple discussions in archives and above. Inomyabcs (talk) 00:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin Not Part of the Taliban

The sentence that begins "Though vastly outgunned and outnumbered, the Taliban insurgents, most notably the Haqqani Network and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, have waged asymmetric warfare..." is misleading as it seems to say that Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin was/is part of the Taliban. To characterize the Haqqani Network that way is not inaccurate: that group's leader Jalaluddin Haqqani had, indeed, been a Taliban military commander and served as Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs and governor of Paktia Province for the Taliban government ^[1].

But recall that the group Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, by contrast, was bitter enemies with the Taliban, even before the latter came to power. It was the group's leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, together with Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, who were overthrown by the Taliban in 1996 ^[2].

While it's true that Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin and the Taliban have found a common enemy in the US-NATO intervention, and perhaps even have sometimes collaborated on anti–US-NATO attacks, by and large the history of relations between the two groups has been one of violent opposition and conflict. Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin are not "Taliban insurgents," as the above-noted sentence currently seems to say.

JimmyKalash (talk) 18:53, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

True, I have modified the sentence to reflect that they are separate groups. Gazkthul (talk) 05:03, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Minor grammatical correction

I would ask the editors to make the following Minor Edit, a grammatical correction to Paragraph 2:

"U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda, bin Laden had already been wanted by the U.N. since 1999."

The comma after al-Qaeda should be a semi-colon. (Sorry - English professor here, so I can't sleep at night unless I point things like this out!)

Thank you very much your consideration.

123fsdfd34 (talk) 13:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC) Sept. 10, 2015 (user 123fsdfd34)

Corrected. Gazkthul (talk) 05:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 1 October 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. DrKiernan (talk) 11:55, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan (2001–present) → War in Afghanistan (2001–14) – To consistency with dates in the infobox (7 October 2001 – December 28, 2014). Note, the separate article about 2015 war exist: War in Afghanistan (2015–present). 178.95.188.170 (talk) 00:21, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

See also: Talk:War in Afghanistan (2015–present)#Propose merger. 191.17.180.40 (talk) 00:51, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Support per nom - this article is about the 2001 to 2014 phase of the war. Chessrat ^{(talk,contributions)} 03:15, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Support per nom and Chessrat. EkoGraf (talk) 03:15, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Support per above. nagual design 19:10, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Support - reflects scope of article.--Staberinde (talk) 16:40, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Lede too long?

We must attract readers into reading either the body article further or just the intro per MOS:LEAD. Currently, the lede is more than four paragraphs, potentially intimidating or irritating readers away. There should be no more than four paragraphs, no matter how complex the topic is—unless key events are very important for readers who want to read just the intro. --George Ho (talk) 01:32, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I changed (or reduced) the intro from eight paragraphs to five. However, I just merged paragraphs. The intro should still be no more than four. George Ho (talk) 06:57, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I see you added the maintenance templates again. First, the lede is perfectly fine. It is comparable in size with articles of other important wars, like World War II. Second, it doesn't need to be rewritten. I'm not sure if this second template you added is just a complement of the first one or if rewriting is a totally different thing. Either way, please don't add the templates again Huritisho 01:16, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

As I said, Huritisho, I eliminated some sentences that are not in the body context. There may be more in the lede. If tags are not the answer, then the whole article must be thoroughly checked to reflect the intro. As for WWII and 2000s Afghan War, they are not exactly the same topics. WWII was Axis of Powers vs. Big Allies, whereas Afghan War was one of the phases of ongoing Afghan War. More like US interfering with Afghan affairs, even when 9/11 prompted the US into continuing interference with foreign affairs. As for ledes in general, I started the newest discussion at WT:LEAD. --George Ho (talk) 06:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Let's wait for more people's opinion. Meanwhile, don't add the tags. They pollute the article. Huritisho 17:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Huritisho, what do you think of my changing the layout? George Ho (talk) 18:34, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I guess it is ok Huritisho 18:39, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

And rearranging sentences? George Ho (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Double image collage in infobox

There is excessive image spam in infobox, one of the collages should be removed. I have no personal preference which one.--Staberinde (talk) 16:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect statement?

Editing appears to be broken for this article, but the initial paragraph contains the apparently incorrect statement:

This phase of the War is the longest war in United States history.

Wikipedia's own article on the lengths of American participation in it's major wars contradicts this statement, and gives Vietnam as the longest war in American history (17.2 years, versus Afghanistan's 14.1 years).

Somebody who knows how to fix the "edit" feature should correct this. 74.95.43.249 (talk) 20:51, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

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Adding British Monarch to Commanders and Leaders

It is convention for the British monarch to be mentioned as a commander as it is the British monarch who is commander-in-chief of the British army. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.210.131.111 (talk) 22:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

No source?

There is no source for the information in the summary that says, "As of 2015, tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war. Over 4,000 ISAF soldiers and civilian contractors as well as over 15,000 Afghan national security forces members have been killed, as well as nearly 20 thousand civilians."

Add citation needed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:36B4:9CD0:C04B:822D:9791:8E05 (talk) 23:01, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Article title

Shouldn't the title be "War in Afghanistan (2001–2014)"...? Per MOS:BADDATEFORMAT - ^theWOLFchild 09:07, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 1 April 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There is consensus that MOS:BADDATEFORMAT is not applicable here, and MOS:DATERANGE does apply. (non-admin closure) — Amakuru (talk) 18:26, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan (2001–14) → War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) – per mos:baddateformat - ^theWOLFchild 09:16, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Support - as requestor - ^theWOLFchild 04:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose. Absolutely contrary to MOS:DATERANGE – I advise reviewing it. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I've read DATERANGE, it says: and the range's end year is usually abbreviated to two digits (emphasis mine), so it's not compulsory (considering this is a guideline in the first place). I asked for the move because I had seen full 4-digit years in article article titles with year-to-year date ranges and I also thought it looked better. - ^theWOLFchild 04:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

In general, using 19XX–19XX or 20XX–20XX is considered wrong (incl. in article titles) because of MOS:DATERANGE and most articles either follow MOS:DATERANGE or ultimately get moved to comply with it. There has to be a good reason to ignore it, and WP:IDONTLIKEIT isn't a good reason unless there's wide consensus in agreement to ignore it. P.S. MOS:DATERANGE outlines the exceptions to "abbreviated to two digits" guideline such as 19XX–20XX type date-ranges, or dates before 1000 A.D., which does not apply in this case. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Relax, this isn't just a case of IDONTLIKEIT. Why is it that the years were abbreviated in the first place? And I see that years prior to 1000AD must be in full, so why not all years? I'd like this to make sense. - ^theWOLFchild 04:36, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not the one that's worked up here. (Afterall, I'm not the one who attempt to short-circuit my own move request...) Meanwhile, changing MOS:DATERANGE is entirely separate discussion – if you want to start that discussion, you're welcome to try, but changing a long-standing MOS will require a site-wide WP:RfC, and you should probably expect it to result in a lot of heartburn and very little satisfaction... But, to the point at hand, your RM is contrary to current MOS guidelines, and should be rejected on those grounds. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The tone of your replies says otherwise. And if Wikipedia gives you "a lot of heartburn and little satisfaction", then you should probably do some reevaluating. I saw an issue that I thought should be addressed, and so I did. So what if baddate doesn't apply? The whole MOS is just a guideline anyway, (and they change all the time, sometimes without a "site-wide RfC"). If the move doesn't happen, so be it... I'll sleep just fine. - ^theWOLFchild 18:00, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose – This move request is based on a misinterpretation of the MOS. MOS:BADDATEFORMAT says you should not use something like "2001-07" to say "July 2001". Note how the correct example next to it is "July 2001", and check the other corresponding incorrect examples as well. It's not telling you how to write year ranges. On the contrary, MOS:DATERANGE clearly states the abbreviated form ("2001–07") should be used in most cases, except for birth-death parentheticals and some other exceptions, neither of which does this case fall under. nyuszika7h (talk) 13:55, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I got that now. The dates still look silly, and they're based on an equally-silly guideline. Why full years before 1000AD, but not after? I'd love to hear the explanation for that from whomever it was that came up with it. - ^theWOLFchild 18:00, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

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Contradiction with longest war article

Hello. In the lede, it is mentioned that this is the longest war America has participated in. List of the lengths of American participation in major wars says otherwise. How to resolve this conflict? Munci (talk) 06:06, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe this is the war in which the US had a direct conflict with for the longest period of time, while the US was involved in the Vietnam War for a longer period of time they did not have a direct conflict with it for as long as they have had in this war — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:4A:403:3F70:99FA:284D:2C1D:1380 (talk) 02:54, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

The Washington Post article used as a reference mentions that the date of US entry into war in Vietnam is the subject of debate. Three of the other references were published December 28-29, 2014, probably told by the White House to use the "longest war" phrase. The ABC article from 2010 clearly defines the Vietnam war as only 103 months. I think we should water down the statement in the lede to "one of the longest" and explain fully in the main article. Thundermaker (talk) 22:29, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Change all instances of "Al Qaeda" to "Al-Qaeda" (with dash)

This edit request to War in Afghanistan (2001–14) has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please make the name of the Islamic organization mentioned here consistent. There are instances in which "Al-Qaeda" is spelled both with and without the dash, the former being more prevalent. It would be more convenient for users who are searching the page using the browser's Ctrl-F function if "Al-Qaeda" was spelled consistently with the dash. 75.149.140.41 (talk) 15:47, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Partly done - I have added hyphens to the 2 hyphenless uses in the article, but the other 8 are in references. We do not change other people's usage, so these will have to stay. - Arjayay (talk) 16:25, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Invasion or Liberation

How could the Northern Alliance invade their own country? The article posits that Afghanistan was invaded. Technically the foreign powers chose to intervene on behalf of the insurgent party of a very, very long civil war. Labeling the 2001 action as a foreign invasion is non-factual and leading to a biased conclusion about intervening in an existing situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.107.209 (talk • contribs) 21:56, 11 September 2011

ANSWER: First, the Northern Alliance would not have succeeded in re-conquering the North, nor would the south been taken by President Karzai and Gul Agha Sherzai, had there been no overwhelming US air support, Special Forces, CIA operatives who bought the loyalty of various commanders who defected, a time-honoured Afghan tradition. For more on this see Sarah Chayes: the Punishment of Virtue. Second, what is "factual" is the motivation for the invasion of Afghanistan, which was due to the inability of the Taliban government to hand over Osama Bin Laden to US authorities, as outlined by President Bush in which he said: "The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate." (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/post911/attacks/afghanistan/metimes_taliban_defies_bush.htm) Third, if it was not an invasion, then wouldn't have been a steadily increasing occupying force of ISAF soldiers and the growing control over the country.

Finally, I am not against ISAF in Afghanistan, in fact I served there myself, but let's call it what it was: an invasion and occupation. — Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signat

I think this was meant as a reply to 98.248.107.209 , so moving it in line here:

Of course it was an invasion. By this logic, invasions have never happened at any time anywhere, because some element on the ground always supports the invader to some extent. For example, the Russians can't be invading Ukraine, because there are people on the ground there who support them. Does that make sense? Obviously not. The Ukrainians can't "invade" Ukraine, no, but Russians can. Similarly, the Northern alliance can't "invade" Afghanistan, no. But the U.S. and others can, and of course have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.222.159.20 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 14 November 2014‎

I agree there is absolutely no disputing that what happened was an invasion. The facts are well cited by (something got copy-pasted over user's ip). No Afghani people asked the United States or any of its allies to intervene in their civil war, and Bush's statements are very clear. There's not a hint of this being anything other than an invasion. To say the foriegn forces "liberated" afghanistan is an act of pro-US propaganda. That said, I think the negative connotation of "invasion" is also somewhat unwarranted. If Bush and other officials' statements at the time can be taken at face value, they invaded with good intentions.

Side note: fixed up some formatting around here and changed the title of this section. If we really have to have this debate let's have it properly. 60.42.1.103 (talk) 08:44, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–14) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:16, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

This entry is very confusing because the actual move discussion does take place in the above section. I don't understand why this section is here. I recommend to all interested editors to ignore the above statement by RCMD bot. The discussion does take place on this talk page in the above section. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:18, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, it's confusing. The original suggestion had a typo in it that seems to have caused this confusing notification. The RM suggestion was submitted as "War in Afghanistan (2001-2014)" (with a hyphen) instead of "War in Afghanistan (2001–2014)" (with an en dash). That was later changed by this edit, partly corrected by this edit, and then finally cleaned up by this edit. —BarrelProof (talk) 14:51, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 23 July 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. Consensus to support per updated MOS:DATERANGE. Most opponents argued lack of confusion, however the new title is not confusing either. — JFG ^talk 17:42, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan (2001–14) → War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) – We don't want people to think by mistake that the title refers to the 14th month of 2001; I know there's no such thing, but this article's current title can be interpreted as meaning such a thing. Georgia guy (talk) 15:04, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Comment: The suggestion seems to conflict with the usual formatting of date ranges on Wikipedia. See WP:DATERANGE. Also note that the nomination seems to be ignoring the difference between a hyphen and an en-dash. See also WP:DASH. Also, the fact that there was no 14th month in 2001 might actually assist in clarifying the intended interpretation. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:06, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Since it seems clearly unintentional, I fixed the hyphen in the RM template content. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:09, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Support replacing the em-dash with an en-dash, i.e., moving the article to War in Afghanistan (2001–14). The em-dash is strange. I didn't notice it at first. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:12, 25 July 2016 (UTC) Never mind that remark. Somehow, based on the look of the text in my browser, I thought the current title used an em dash, which is not the case. At this point, since the suggestion seems to conflict with Wikipedia's MOS:DATERANGE convention, I am leaning toward opposing this move suggestion. —BarrelProof (talk) 14:32, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Apparently, the MOS:DATERANGE guidance was just changed. I was not aware of that at the time I made the above remarks. —BarrelProof (talk) 06:42, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Support The move to the new page is an effective change because it makes clearer to the general reader the years that are actually covered - more so than (2001–14). Steve Quinn (talk) 02:26, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Oppose. This doesn't seem to be a real source of confusion. If I read 1996-11, I probably wouldn't assume that meant "November 1996", and 2001-14 seems even clearer from context since 14 isn't a month. Checking, WP:DATERANGE seems to say that both styles of year are fine, but eh, don't see an issue with the briefer verison. SnowFire (talk) 19:08, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Oppose. See Anglo-French War (1778–83), Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), 2012–13 UEFA Champions League, etc. In addition, it appears that a number of pages following a different format were at some point moved to the current format of full year - endash - second year not spelled out fully. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 01:15, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Oppose we would never write the 14th month or even the 11th month as 2014–11 anyway, so this is a solution looking for a problem. Date ranges within a century are usually ABCD–EF, and I see no reason not to do so here. 2004–05 European Challenge Cup and a vast array of similarly titled articles. — Amakuru (talk) 17:03, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Support as per the recently revised WP:DATERANGE guideline. Face it folks: XXXX–XXXX will be the required way to handle date ranges in all article titles going forward. Might as well start the switch with this article... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:34, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
Oppose - I seriously doubt that will cause confusion. Unreal7 (talk) 14:46, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
Oppose. There isn't a 14th month, so there can't be confusion in this regard. Our readers should be competent enough to know this. -- Tavix ^(talk) 04:33, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Support - I cannot think of any advantage of the 2 digit end year version, but the 4 digit end year version is unambigous and clear for native and non-native speakers.Gormfull (talk) 14:57, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Oppose There is no month 14, and thus no need to spell out the full year. Pinging Thewolfchild and Nyuszika7h as participants in the previous move discussion three months ago that haven't voted yet. Pppery (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Support – MOS:DATERANGE has been changed by an RfC since the latest RM, and now prefers full 4-digit endings. It says the abbreviated ending is acceptable for two consecutive years (2000 and 2014 are not consecutive years), in infoboxes and tables (neither is the case, we're talking about an article title), or if there is an established convention for certain topic areas (I'm not aware of the existence of such a convention here). nyuszika7h (talk) 19:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Support - sure... people won't (or shouldn't) confuse this page title as a month instead of a year, but there are other pages with abbreviated years (12 and under) that could be confused, therefore ALL pages should have full 4-digit years in the title. Oh, and the way it is now looks stupid, so there is that as well. (I actually don't really give a shit but, someone pinged me to this so... yeah.) - ^theWOLFchild 03:06, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal for major changes: split, renaming, merge

The war in Afghanistan articles since 2001 need to be reformed.

A new article should be created called 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, or 2001 Afghanistan War. The reason for this is because what happened to 2001 is a whole different entity. The 2001 war involved the Northern Alliance with US air support fighting and toppling the Taliban. Everything that happened after December 2001 is simply the 'aftermath' of the war. From 2002 onwards, there was no more Northern Alliance, no more US air support, no longer a Taliban to be toppled. In fact, there wasn't even a 'war' going on anymore, as the remaining Taliban members were very low in numbers and most of the country was secured (it didn't take until about 2005 for them to properly kickstart a new insurgency campaign). ISAF was created in December 2001 not for war, but security. It's a whole different thing. There was no war after Dec 2001, but simply an effort from NATO to secure the country. The remaining (post-Dec 2001) content should stay in this article, but it should be renamed to NATO intervention in Afghanistan or similar (like e.g. NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and like that article says, the same principles 'establish, preserve, peace during and after war' applied to their ISAF mission in Afghanistan). The confusion lies among the fact that the Taliban have been insurgents since 2002, but NATO had a mission of their own from Dec 2001 to Dec 2014.

In addition, the article War in Afghanistan (2015-present) should be merged into Taliban insurgency (which covers their insurgency since 2002). The reason is that the name of the article suggests that a new war started, when in fact nothing new happened except that NATO's mission ended. This is why the current 2001-2014 article needs to be renamed to NATO intervention. The current situation in Afghanistan is the same as it was in 2002, with the main difference being that NATO's mission ended - the Taliban are still continuing their insurgency activities. Whilst there are a few smaller groups rivalling both the Taliban and the government currently, the main conflict is between government and Taliban. ISIL do operate in Afghanistan but they are not 'insurgents' like the Taliban - they do not recognize the countries and only claim their own 'caliphate'. They themselves are rivals of the Taliban. In the Colombian conflict for instance, there are several groups fighting the government but the one predominant group is FARC. In the current Syrian civil war as well, ISIL is a participant (not one of the 'main' rebels fighting the government like the Free Syrian Army) but the international intervention is a different article, Military intervention against ISIL. In Afghanistan, ever since 2002, the predominant group has always been the Taliban.

Summary of changes (my personal suggestion):

2001 war content in War in Afghanistan (2001-2014) split into new article 2001 invasion of Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001-2014) renamed to NATO intervention in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2015-present) merged into Taliban insurgency

Due to the potential major changes, these are likely going to be controversial among some people, so I would like to allow this proposal to stay in place for a long time before any decisions are made.

Discuss these proposals here below.

--Hyperwq+639 (talk) 15:21, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Hyperwq+639, I disagree that "Everything that happened after December 2001 is simply the 'aftermath' of the war." Things certainly slowed down for a while after the Fall of Kabul in November and the NATO victory at Tora Bora in December. However, the fighting continued with mostly the same players. The Taliban regrouped and continued to fight against troops from the new Afghan Government, the U.S., and its NATO allies. NATO failed to commit a large number of troops to the ensuing action, but fighting kept going. Of course, the war took on a new character after 2001, but the participants remained the same. Renaming this article "NATO Intervention in Afghanistan" downplays the fact that this, even after the initial invasion, really was a war.

I suggest that we look to what has been done for the War in Iraq. There is one article that covers the whole war, from 2003 to 2011, even though that conflict did, like this one, take on a new character after the invasion and overthrow of Hussein's Government. There is also a separate article entitled 2003 invasion of Iraq, focusing in greater detail on the war's beginning, just as United States invasion of Afghanistan is its own article. However, for the Iraq conflict, the post-2003 fighting is covered in detail in several separate articles. But at the same time, there is still one article that covers the entire war, just as there is here. The fighting that took place in Afghanistan from December 2001 to December 2014 is so directly tied to what happened in the months before that I do not think splitting the two things into separate articles would be wise, just as the December 2003 to December 2011 fighting in Iraq is so directly died to what happened in the months before that it is included in the same article.

In addition, this thread has been opened for 16 days, and my response is the first. During that timespan of more than 2 weeks, no one has come to second your proposal. If that does not change within about 2-3 days of my reply, I recommend closing this and removing the template from the article, as your idea will have failed to gain consenus. Thank you. Display name 99 (talk) 19:14, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

At this time this thread has been opened for more than 3 weeks, and its proposal has received only one response, from me, which argued against it, and the nominator has made no attempt to respond to my comments. As such, there is no consensus for creating an article called "2001 invasion of Afghanistan" or "2001 Afghanistan War" while there is already an article called "United States Invasion of Afghanistan" on precisely the same subject, nor any agreement for any of the other things proposed. Thus, I am removing the templates placed at the various articles concerning the suggest renamings and merges. Display name 99 (talk) 16:23, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan is still going on

I propose that the War in Afghanistan (2015-present) merged into War in Afghanistan (2001-present) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.194.49.63 (talk) 22:20, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) ended in 2014. ISAF was the main NATO-spearheaded security mission in Afghanistan training the Afghan army and fighting the Taliban (among other things they did). The dissolution of ISAF in Dec 2014, following the termination of combat ops, was basically the signal that this war in Afghanistan had ended. There are still troops there, yes. and Operation Resolute Support is a direct branch-off of ISAF, but NATO formally transferred all the power over to the Afghan army themselves. So, basically, it is no longer the same war...this is why the article War in Afghanistan (2015–present) now exists. The list of belligerents has changed, and it is thus a different war (albeit many of the elements are similar, and one belligerent side has remained the same, essentially). --FuzzyGopher (talk) 00:39, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Is "Invasion" really the right word?

It seems to me that "Invasion" is being used a bit liberally and incorrectly several places in this article. The initial strikes on the Taliban were done by U.S. Army Special Forces units, in small numbers. That would not qualify as an invasion. After that, the U.S. partnered with the Afghanistan government and NATO forces to combat the Taliban. "Invasion" would be more accurate if the U.S. were fighting against Afghanistan itself, instead of allying with it.

By the definition of "invasion", two things are required: 1) a large force, and 2) being "unwelcome".

The referenced sources don't seem to support the use of "invasion" either.

The USSR in 1979, that was an invasion. They were not welcome in Afghanistan. (No offense to our friends from the area...just using documented history. The U.S. has been unwelcome at other places/times as well.)

Thoughts? Agree/Disagree?

- Hannibal Smith ❯❯❯ 06:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you make a valuable point that's well worth discussing. But I still think that the term "invasion" accurately describes the US-led intervention. Invasion states that an invasion "is a military offensive in which large parts of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory controlled by another such entity" - although the article gives no citation for this definition. The only difference I can tell between your and this definition is that yours requires "being unwelcome" and the article's requires only "aggressive" action. I think it's fair to say that Nato forces entered Afghanistan aggressively as they captured airports/bases to use as entry points. I also think that the Taliban constituted a geopolitical entity at the time - although perhaps slightly less so by the time large scale US forces entered the country. This is where I think your argument is strongest - that the "invasion" only took place after the Taliban was no longer a major geopolitical entity. However, the US did play a large role in establishing the post-Taliban Afghan Government and Nato forces controlled major military installations in the country and US command of operations continued rather than command being handed over to the Afghan Government. This seems to be more than a civil war with foreign assistance. Furthermore, US justification claimed the war was an act of self-defensive - a response to 9/11 and a means to prevent further attacks by Al Qaeda - and not an intervention that would have taken place regardless of 9/11.

As to the Soviet invasion in the 80s, I think that there are a few similarities to the Nato invasion. Firstly, the then government of Afghanistan repeatedly asked for Soviet help fighting rebels. This Afghan government was indisputably the de facto government of the country and was not simply an extension of the Soviet Union installed after an invasion. Soviet military movement into Afghanistan was to help the then government, so in effect the Soviet Union allied itself with Afghanistan.

Thank you for all of your contributions to Wikipedia!

BananaCarrot152 (talk) 04:39, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Canada not listed as a belligerent

Canada was a belligerent.

Canada's_role_in_the_Afghanistan_War — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.240.182 (talk • contribs) 15:06, 4 September 2014‎

Article also suggests that Canada didn't join in until 2002 or 2003. Simply not true. JTF2 deployed in Oct 2001, and CF personnel already assigned to US units were authorized to deploy with their units. There are lots of references for that, but here's one. Titaniumlegs (talk) 22:33, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

The article mentions that other countries joined the US/UK: "The two were later joined by other countries.[39][40]". This is in the US invasion of Afghanistan section. That statement cites the national post article you mention. However, it doesn't mention Canada specifically in the text until later. I'm not familiar enough with Canada's role in the war to know whether it would be better to mention it specifically - perhaps another editor is? BananaCarrot152 (talk) 03:00, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Polls on Afghan support of American invasion

The article cites two polls for claim that a "majority of Afghanistan's population supported the American invasion of their country" in the introduction.

I take issue with this one two grounds: First, the polls were conducted in retrospect, the WPO in 2005 and the acsor/Langer Research Associates/D3 Systems in 2014. I changed the sentence to "...Afghanistan's population retrospectively supported..." to clear up any confusion. Towns Hill reverted my edit arguing that the CNN article cited in the following sentence corroborates the first claim. However, this CNN news report on the liberation of Kabul on 13-14 November does not make claims about majorities of Afghans but only reports on anecdotal observations made by CNN journalists in Kabul. Furthermore, Kabul was liberated by Northern Alliance Forces along with 12 US special forces troops (ODA 555: see 5th Special Forces Group and US invasion of Afghanistan). Therefor, the CNN article only says that residents in Kabul were happy that Afghan Northern Alliance forces took the city after weeks of Coalition bombing and that these residents enjoyed freedoms that the Taliban had forbidden. The article makes no claim about support of an American invasion.

Second: Whether it is noteworthy to state that the polls were American (and whether the 2014 polls is even American). The 2005 poll is by an American organization — WorldPublicOpinion.org is part of the University of Maryland. The 2014 poll was conducted by Acsor, Langer Research Associates, and D3 Systems. While Acsor is based in Kabul, I don't think that it is wholly accurate to say that it is not an American organization; it was founded by D3 Systems, an American company, and it's Managing Director, Matthew Warshaw, is both an American and an employee of D3. Langer Research Associates is based in New York. To me this is an American poll, but I understand why other editors may view it differently. Can we come to a consensus about this?

I think that when citing polls it's important to declare any major possible conflicts of interest so that the reader can decide how credible they think the polls are. This especially as the statement is made in second sentence of the introduction.

Thoughts? BananaCarrot152 (talk) 05:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello. I think I might just add this to the reading repository here. I was reading this book (published by Lexington Books) in 2016. Scholars Amin Saikal and Kirill Nourzhanov are the main contributors to this work. On page 11 of the book it incorporates the following text: Although initially a majority of the Afghans seemed to be happy with the U.S.-led intervention...^[1] Towns Hill

Exactly. This line of text Towns Hill added, a recent insertion from 2 January 2017, is unacceptable. Several editors have tried to revert or change it but all have been denied. As for this edit, not only does the edit cite US created, US sponsored and US affiliated sources (with the proof being here http://prntscr.com/dzogc7 (WPO website), http://acsor-surveys.com/who-we-are/our-clients/ (ASCOR website) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-warshaw-bb660221), and not only do both sources date from after the invasion amongst everything else the original poster said here, it's merely a provocative edit, and even if reliable sources could be found for the claim, which I highly doubt, its addition is entirely inappropriate for the second sentence, let alone the lead section, of the article for this major worldwide controversial war. SpikeballUnion (talk) 16:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

The "nationality" of a source is completely irrelevant.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Very wrong indeed. Consider the actual evidence I showed instead of glossing over it - "US Department of Defense" and "US Department of State" are listed as clients of the ASCOR Survey corporation. The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Given these facts, if a survey conducted on the Afghan populace, sponsored by the US, showed that Afghan people heavily disapproved of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the US Departments of Defense and of State would not have accepted the survey results, being the government of the country which carried out the invasion of Afghanistan. Not to mention, the WPO is sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace or USIP, a federal organisation which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, whose board is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and which "provides analysis of, and is involved in, conflicts around the world". Just doing some research goes a long way. SpikeballUnion (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

No, the nationality is irrelevant. All that matters is whether Ascor or WPO are reliable or not. Who they're affiliated with or who their clients are doesn't matter. So how are these organizations products treated in the relevant literature or by other reliable sources? Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that the statement in the intro may also be misleading: the sources (if they are to be trusted) show only that a majority of Afghans supported the invasion after it happened, not that they were supportive of the idea beforehand. The Americans did not invade Afghanistan because the majority of Afghan people indicated that they wanted them to, but rather for reasons entirely independent of Afghan public opinion. The invasions was a response to 9/11 and aimed at removing a government which the US government saw as being a "state sponsor of terrorism." For this reason I believe that the polls have no place in the intro, at least not at the start of it, as they were not the reason the war happened but only a secondary justification "proven" after the fact. Remember, in 1997 senior Taliban officials visited the US for economic talks with a US company.^[2] At that point economic cooperation still superseded any efforts to topple the Taliban including economic sanctions blocking such business deals. The polls were not part of the US narrative justifying military action, they didn't even exist at the time.

However, these polls do seem to be some of the most thorough regarding the invasion and I have been unable to find any polls that were not conducted by US organizations. It seems that initial Afghan support for the war did exist, or at least retrospective support for the initial invasion. I don't think its relevant to mention them in the intro, at least not in the first paragraph but they certainly have a place in the Domestic Reactions section. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 21:56, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes. As I said I definitely disagree, regardless of the biased sources, that such a claim would be completely inappropriate for the second sentence of this article. Also note what details the original poster said about where the polls took place and under what conditions. Consider that the Northern Alliance, which the US worked with, was mostly ethnic non-Pashtun (Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, etc.) against the generally Pashtun Taliban, so after the war when the post-Northern Alliance government had control over the vast majority of the country, the results of the populace would obviously be in support for the US, referring to the original post. If these polls decide to be kept somewhere else in the article, it's highly important that it's mentioned that they were conducted under these conditions. SpikeballUnion (talk) 22:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Seeing that there has been no rebuttal on this point (that the statement should be removed from the into) I will make the edit in a few hours.

The sources also make no claim that the majority of Afghans supported the invasion in 2001-02, only that a majority said that they believed it "was a good thing." Note that the question did not ask if they supported the invasion, only if they think now that it was a good thing; a subtle, but all the same important distinction as it relates to the whole narrative of the invasion. The US did not invade because of Afghan public opinion and that public opinion only began to matter to the invaders afterwards (I don't think this is controversial and I know of no source that claims the war was a result of Afghan public opinion). BananaCarrot152 (talk) 08:08, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Support for your side, CNN is obvious warhawk propaganda outlet, zero legitimacy you know, they can't just say "afghans said that!" and it instantly turns true, i mean srsly who would actually support an invasion into their own country? it was a criminal act which created a criminal war, which american taxpayers gotta pay for.. like wtf? endless war and afghanistan corruption sucks everything in like some black hole and they ask for more money, read on 2015- present article that they just control some 52% country like seriously lets just leave em GroundlessAir (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I have added another source to the Domestic Reactions section, and removed the leading sentence on polling so that the section reflects the order in which the events took place. GroundlessAir if you have reliable sources regarding public opinion in Afghanistan on the war between 2001 and 2014, please list them here so that we can add them. I haven't read any reporting from the time that would add a different angle but perhaps you know some or secondary sources that discuss the public reactions and/or biased ("warhawk propaganda") reporting. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 04:31, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

References

^ Saikal, Amin (2016). Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal. Lexington Books. p. 11. ISBN 9781498529136.
^ "BBC News | West Asia | Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline".

Merge War in Afghanistan (2015-present) into this article?

Two articles for US/NATO involvement in Afghanistan do not make sense to me. Especially since it looks likely the US is getting ready to increase its troop level and authorities for combat operations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-poised-to-expand-military-effort-against-taliban-in-afghanistan/2017/05/08/356c4930-33fa-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_usafghan-0633pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory . Why not merge the two articles and setup the article for continued US/NATO involvement? Casprings (talk) 00:31, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Or maybe wait and see if the US sends more soldiers or starts dropping more bombs etc.? Seems to me that the "end" of the war was just rhetoric on the side of the US government and not a meaningful change. But I think without new soldiers etc. we would need proper consensus to consolidate the articles on that basis. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 05:44, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Support - this 2015-present phase isn't different from rest of the conflict which began since 2001, just because NATO troops handed over some flag and some bases and equipment to Afghan Army, does not make it entirely different conflict.GroundlessAir (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Support The two different articles make the topic harder for readers to comprehend the totality of the situation. In terms of peripheral articles, such as Journalists killed in Afghanistan, it makes no sense to have a 2014 end date when journalists like David Gilkey are killed after that reporting on essentially the same war/conflict. Readers shouldn't have to look through different articles or access information through separate categories. If we are going to present an end date, it should really mean something different and not a continuation. This arbitrary division makes no sense knowledgewise or in practice. Crtew (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Support/Neutral I propose we move this article to War in Afghanistan (2001-present) and include the last 3 years but keep the other article (War in Afghanistan (2015-present)) as a sub-phase of the war, just like Invasion of Afghanistan and Taliban insurgency. I think that if we just merge everything then this article would become too long and unwieldy (I don't oppose that option, just prefer the other). Any thoughts? BananaCarrot152 (talk) 17:20, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Support - same war, slightly different actors Mztourist (talk) 03:15, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Support - same war, don't want to see people misled into thinking it really "ended" by having them separate. cargocontainer (talk) 04:52, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Support It is hard to argue that they should be separate at this point, although it does run the risk of becoming too long. KD 18:22, 23 June 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kdowns1453 (talk • contribs)

Requested move 14 June 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Talk subpages have been moved as well, which took a bit of effort. I'll C2D the categories when I get back in an hour or two, and start merging the article content. That last part will need to be a collaborative effort. —Guan aco 22:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC) —Guan aco 22:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) → War in Afghanistan (2001–present) – Per the rationale above, "the two different articles make the topic harder for readers to comprehend the totality of the situation. In terms of peripheral articles, such as Journalists killed in Afghanistan, it makes no sense to have a 2014 end date." This will require a merge of War in Afghanistan (2015–present) Casprings (talk) 02:59, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Support -- Per above. No sign that war has actually ended, or that actors have change. Also see new US govt policy: Trump gives pentagon authority over troop levels (Washington post). This will likely result in an re-expansion of the US war effort. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 15:32, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Alerting editors who took part in the conversation above to this discussion. GroundlessAir, Crtew,Mztourist. Casprings (talk) 17:26, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Support, but move it to War in Afghanistan (2001–present) instead; this type of hyphen is commonly used in date gaps. 2601:8C:4001:DCB9:91CD:2A60:1B87:37CA (talk) 19:59, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Support per above. Mztourist (talk) 07:28, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Comment remember to C2D the categories after such a move. Ppp ery 22:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Attempting to close: The redirect at War in Afghanistan (2001–present) is move-protected so we need to wait for a sysop to G6-delete it. Once that's done I'll handle the initial cleanup and see about merging some of this text. —Guan aco 05:16, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I've deleted the page holding up the move. The rest of the stuff is far too much hassle for me so you're on your own. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 15:17, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

War in Afghanistan (2015–present) Deleted

If the war is still ongoing then the War in Afghanistan (2015–present) should be deleted since Wikipedians would not consider 2014 the end date. Otherwise it's superfluous and unencyclopedic.--Fruitloop11 (talk) 20:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it should be deleted because the consensus was that the phase that started in 2001 never ended — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎2601:4a:403:3f70:6da1:a47c:3be7:7ee8 (talk • contribs) 03:54, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

sources in infobox

the infobox lacks any sources for the belligerent countries. could anyone add some? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BountyFlamor (talk • contribs) 11:28, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@BountyFlamor: It's generally not necessary to source everything in the lead section and infobox, if the information can be readily verified in the article text. (WP:INFOBOXREF) —Guan aco 12:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@Guanaco: But it isn't. Germany is listed in the invasion phase. but neither on this page, nor on the page "United States invasion of Afghnistan" is there any information on that at all. BountyFlamor (talk) 12:55, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll make sure it gets done. The infobox may need a major revamp with the move/merge. —Guan aco 02:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

The source of footnote [1] is not worth the quote. The source and the section quoted do not correspond.

German special forces were in Afghanistan in Dec 2001; see Task Force K-Bar. I agree we need better sourcing. This article seems to be about as convoluted and confusing as the real conflict. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 19:47, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Also this book BananaCarrot152 (talk) 19:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Infobox does seem weird with pretty much no sources, there's some washington post source about american suspicions of Russia "supporting" the taliban, however I don't believe it is sufficient to add entire massive country into a list of belligerents labeling it a supporter of some armed islamist groups just because some general had some personal russophobic opinions! This is an outrage and totally against WP:NPOV! BlindNight (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Not sure this is a WP:NPOV issue but I agree Russia should not be listed as their involvement is unproven and news reports acknowledge this.^[1] Also Pakistan is not listed either (see Inter-Services Intelligence activities in Afghanistan). — Preceding unsigned comment added by BananaCarrot152 (talk • contribs) 00:53, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

^ http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/asia/taliban-weapons-afghanistan/index.html

11K after ISAF?

New sources seem to indicate the US number after the end of ISAF is 11K. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/world/asia/afghanistan-troop-totals.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Might update throughout the article.Casprings (talk) 02:55, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

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Moving categories to reflect recent page move

I just noticed that all of the subcategories for Category:War in Afghanistan (2001-present) still reflect this article's earlier (2001-2014) title. This should be changed, right? I'm not involved with military topics on Wikipedia, so I wouldn't be comfortable making any changes myself, but it seems confusing to have categories like Category:War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) films and Category:Opposition to the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) if the main parent category is going to be titled Category:War in Afghanistan (2001-present). Please ping me, as I'm not going to add this page to my watch list, but would like to know what others think. Thanks. --Jpcase (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I've opened a CfD for this here - Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 January 20#War in Afghanistan --Jpcase (talk) 21:15, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

1000 more soldiers

See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/up-to-1000-more-us-troops-could-be-headed-to-afghanistan-this-spring/2018/01/21/153930b6-fd1b-11e7-a46b-a3614530bd87_story.html?utm_term=.40a7ab86753a

we need a chart.. this is getting close to ISAF numbers.Casprings (talk) 01:30, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Chronology of the war (2001-present)

The state of the chronology of this war throughout Wikipedia articles is in a sorry, messy state. The information about the events of various years is organized in different ways, without an organic style. And it's frequently incomplete and in need of an update. For instance, we have List of military operations in the war in Afghanistan (2001–present) - stopping at 2010! Timeline of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) is in a bit better state - it stops at 2013... If you are just interested in the history of coalition operations, on Category:Military operations of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) you can find Coalition combat operations in Afghanistan in 2006, Coalition combat operations in Afghanistan in 2007 and Coalition combat operations in Afghanistan in 2008, no more and no less, beside the articles on the single attacks/ operations. The "Events and controversies" section of Template:Afghanistan War links to "XXXX in Afghanistan" for the years from 2007 to 2018, not before, while the Template:Campaignbox War in Afghanistan (2001–present) is more systematic.

The History section on this page is the most organic narration of the events of the whole conflict, but it should be just a summary, and it's not adequately supported by more specifica articles.

(This talk page may not be the fittest place to talk about problems distributed among various articles, but it looks like there's no better page. Maybe this is one of the reasons for the dishomogeneity.) ---- 79.51.247.22 (talk) 08:19, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Update Summary Box

Not sure how to update the summary box, but I noticed it still has Malcom Turnbull instead of the new PM Scott Morrison in the leaders section — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.150.0 (talk) 06:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out, I've made the fix. BananaCarrot152 (talk) 03:16, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Don't Edit On This

This is an important topic for kids in school, and they need a reliable source. One that just doesn't let people edit whenever they want to.

With all due respect, the reliability of Wikipedia depends of its essence on allowing almost anyone to change almost anything subject to the Wikimedia rules of writing from a neutral point of view, citing credible sources, and treating others with respect.

I get a few emails a day notifying me of changes made to different Wikipedia articles. Most fix minor errors like converting "Dont" to "Don't". Others are more substantive. Some are vandalism. The obvious vandalism is reverted usually in seconds. More subtle "Point of View" editing sometimes gets accepted for a time but is usually reverted in reasonably short order.

"The 28 pages", declassified in 2016, document Saudi involvement in the preparations for 9-11 as early as 1999. This evidence was clearly available to the Bush administration before they invaded Afghanistan. There is other evidence that has been ignored or suppressed that could be added to this article to make it more balanced and comprehensive.

On the other hand, this article is already too long. The "size guideline" in Wikipedia:Article size recommends that articles over 100 kB be divided into smaller article. The "page statistics" on this article say it has 157 kB . This article already references 26 "main articles", if I counted correctly, and could probably be more useful if it were shortened by using more judicious summaries of those other main articles. I'm not going to do that myself, but I would encourage and support others who attempted to do so. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:18, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

The "Size guideline" section of the Wikipedia article entitled, "Wikipedia:Article size" says 'Number of characters in an article can be found with the help of XTools (also accessible via Page History from Page Statistics link at the top) under "Prose" in the "General statistics" section; Shubinator's DYK tool; or Prosesize.' When I first wrote the above, I copied "Page size: 381 kB", when I should have copied "Characters: 157 kB" (under "Prose:"). ::So the article is not as much as my initial analysis suggested above the "useful rule of thumb": "> 100 kB: Almost certainly should be divided". (NOTE: 157 kB is the same as 157,000 bytes or characters.) DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:52, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

American English

@Acemaster77: A flag above says "This article is written in American English". Some of your changes reverted on 2019-03-10T10:12:27‎ by user:Andy Dingley were to revert your changes from American to British English, consistent with this flag. DavidMCEddy (talk) 13:55, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

See WP:ANI#Acemaster77 and ENGVAR. If any of Acemaster's changes are consistent with particular articles re ENGVAR, I'm happy for them to stand. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: Why would someone change American to British English in some places and British to American English in others, especially after being asked not to? Is this a Wikipedia:Sock puppetry trick to compile innocuous edits to become autoconfirmed, so s/he can make more questionable edits? DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:13, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: This is almost definitely edit farming. puggo (talk) 14:48, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

A potential solution to the article's massive size?

I've seen in a few other articles that when they begin to mention events that aren't as important to the entire article's narrative, they just simply throw a link to the main article and leave it without any body text, or only a few sentences. As it is, most every event in this article either has its own article or has the notability and the sources for an article.

This would, of course, only apply to the History section really, but could potentially apply to other areas.

I'm not sure if this is against the rules or not, but if not, it's probably the best chance this article has at shortening itself without massive reworking. puggo (talk) 15:26, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

What you suggest is fully supported by the rules.

As of now (2019-03-19), "View history" > "Page statistics": Prose: Characters is 156,935. This compares to the guidelines in "Wikipedia:Article size" on "What to do" = "Almost certainly should be divided" when "Readable prose size" is "> 100 kB".

I just created a new article on History of War in Afghanistan (2001–present).

Next, I plan to replace the current History section with a table giving year or year range with the title of each subsection with a link to that subsection in the separate article on "History of War in Afghanistan (2001–present)" -- except for the past 2 years, say.

Even this new "History" article is long with Prose: Characters = 92,474. The "Wikipedia:Article size" article says that "> 60 kB", the article "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)". DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:02, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Done.

Current Prose Characters = 64,636. That's still "> 60 kB", which the guidelines say "Probably should be divided".

However, I'll leave this task for someone else.

I hope you like the result.

If not, Wikipedia:Be bold but not WP:RECKLESS. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:36, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I just deleted the {{very long|rps=133|date=November 2018}} flag. It's still long but not "very long";-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:01, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why did you keep 2018 and 2019's portion in the History section? puggo (talk) 01:05, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

2019 is not history: It's current. 2018 is borderline. In January next year, 2020, someone can then move 2018 to history and add it the table when they also create a new section for the new year ... maybe.

If we're really shockingly lucky, this war will actually be over by then, and a "2020" section won't be needed. However, I'll be shocked if that happens. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:34, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Puggo: Might you have other thoughts on how this article and the companion "History of War in Afghanistan (2001–present)" might be shrunk? If I had more time and energy for this (which I don't), I'd might look for two things:

Any section with a link to another "Main article" like "War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#Origins of Afghanistan's civil war" could be examined: If that section is more than one or two relatively short paragraphs, those paragraphs could be compared with the companion main article and shrunk to, e.g., one paragraph or two short paragraphs, making sure especially that any reference is included in the referenced "Main article" before considering deleting it.
Any other particularly long section could potentially be converted into a new stand-alone article and the shrunk like I did with the "History" section.

Thanks for suggesting the reduction in the "History" section, and thanks for supporting me when I actually did it (without bothering to ask you first). DavidMCEddy (talk) 08:12, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Honestly I think that if there's a main article for something, it deserves only a paragraph at most, and a sentence or two if it's a relatively unimportant topic.

I hope to work on this article further with people like you. :^) puggo (talk) 14:40, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy: Is there anything in either article that should go in History of Afghanistan (1992–present)? Blaylockjam10 (talk) 08:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, but I don't know enough about this subject to decide that and don't see how I can create the time to do much more than I did with this. Thanks for your work on this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:25, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

"War in Afghanistan" vs. "U.S. War in Afghanistan"

On 2019-04-30 user:68.148.100.112 changed the first few words of this article from:

The War in Afghanistan (or the U.S. War in Afghanistan)

to:

The U.S. War in Afghanistan (or the War in Afghanistan)

I'm reverting it as POV editing. I think the facts and the previous verbiage make the point in a way that is less likely to offend people who believe the standard US propaganda about this war. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Request edit

Boris Johnson is the British Prime Minister. PoliticalGamerBoy (talk) 13:20, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Include Taliban point of view

For this article to have an NPOV I believe it should include pictures of Taliban fighters and also some opinions from Taliban leaders. The pictures in the article seem to be chosen poorly for NPOV (Girl receives aid from USAID, for example) while the collage at the infobox only shows soldiers from one side, including a detailed account that includes names from individual soldiers, not even one of them a Taliban. The infobox picture announces "Taliban fighters in a cave", but apparently it was erased. I will include a couple of pictures of Taliban forces if there are no comments to this statement during next week.Ciroa (talk) 04:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

No issue with adding more on the Taliban point of view, I think it's a good idea. --Cerebellum (talk) 10:58, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Update casualties and losses

I have seen the same casualties and losses since nearly 2 years, pls update Ryan Okhla (talk) 18:19, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Why is this under "Effects"?

In 2017, Donald Trump said that the US is 'losing' the war and had considered firing the US generals in charge.[176] There might be some other place in the article to put it, but has nothing to do with the effects of the war. Or maybe there is no place for it and it adds nothing to the article. I don't see any quotes from the other two presidents on whose watch the war was fought. Thoughts? -- MelanieN (talk) 22:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

i have put all the material in the section into the stability problem one; we don't need an alphabet soup of sections for the article. Flaughtin (talk) 23:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

[1] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalaluddin_Haqqani#Relations_with_the_Taliban

[2] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulbuddin_Hekmatyar#Relations_with_the_Taliban

[3] Saikal, Amin (2016). Afghanistan and Its Neighbors after the NATO Withdrawal. Lexington Books. p. 11. ISBN 9781498529136.

[4] "BBC News | West Asia | Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline".

[5] ttp://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/asia/taliban-weapons-afghanistan/index.html

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