Evaluative Essay: “Why the military needs to leave Afghanistan, and soon” By Phil Sparrow

Evaluative Essay: “Why the military needs to leave Afghanistan, and soon” By Phil Sparrow

Introduction

A number of articles have been written by Phil Sparrow focusing on the various themes of the lives of the people living in various parts of the country. “ Why the military needs to leave Afghanistan, and soon” is an article piece written by him that serves as a counter argument giving response to an article by Jillian Hocking with the title “Afghans do not want the tanks to leave, and nor should we”. This evaluative essay will take into consideration a number of aspects of his article so as to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments presented by him. The arguments of the article will be broadly standardized and then will be evaluated on the themes of the topics we studied in class including the fallacies, the nature of the arguments including the inferences made and element of persuasiveness.

Discussion

Hocking was of a view that Military people are required to remain in Afghanistan. She has made this assertion on the basis of the talk she had with Afghans (Hocking, 2012). The major aim of Sparrow in writing his article is to defend his point that the military is under great pressures to leave Afghanistan. He hold a belief that people who are in favor of letting us and military live in Afghanistan on the basis of the assumption that Afghan people do not want us to leave, are simply making a useless argument. Sparrow with the help of his article has made an attempt to demolish the Hocking's argument.

Standardization, clarification and the elements of a good argument

Critical thinking is required in order to better understand an argument as it provides a way person takes up problems in life (Sumner, 1906, pp. 633).An argument's structure can better be examined with the help of the standardization process. It makes an argument in a format that enables a person to better see and understand the arguments. The broad standardization of the sparrow's argument could be in a following format

Premise 1: As Political presence is different from military presence

Premise 2: International military is not the best source for providing security to Afghan people

Sub Conclusion: So, Authorities involved in policy making, governance and nationhood development must remain there in Afghanistan without the involvement of military.

Premise 3: And as Taliban are not innocent but they could better be settled if they are left alone

Conclusion: Therefore, Afghans do want that the American military troops must be sent out from their country

The arguments presented by Sparrow has both positive and negative aspects

As far as the positivity is concerned, Sparrow was well familiar with the subject of the article. He remained stick to his ideas. He did not get distracted by the ideas of other people. On the other side, the arguments language gives a sense that Sparrow did not respected the ideas of the opposing party (in this case are ...