26 January 2010
Stephen T. Banko IIIWhy can't our side fight?
Does anyone else see the recurring pattern in our military involvement around the world?
First, we point out the militaristic history of the nation we occupy (and no matter how you parse it, we occupy). In Vietnam we were reminded of the centuries long fights against the Chinese, then the colonial French and then the Japanese and then the French again.
In Iraq, we faced Saddam’s “elite” Republican Guard and one of the world’s largest standing armies; battle-tested and war hardened in combat against the Iranians but routed by our own American forces in the liberation of Kuwait.
Now, in Afghanistan, we are reminded of the long history of bellicosity among the warlords and tribal leaders of this barren land.
Given all this long and bloody experience in war and combat, why do Americans have to invest so much blood and treasure to build war fighting capacity in our allies? If these nations fought so long, hard, and so courageously in the past, why do they now rely on Americans? Why can’t we just give them guns and bullets and get out of the way? Why do Americans suffer, bleed and die in defense of “warriors?” Why does it take so long to create a fighting force of nationals to take on the people blowing up their countrymen?
Those we fight don’t seem to need much assistance. In Vietnam, the enemy knew exactly what it wanted. They were immutably dedicated to their cause. They were collectively determined to resist what they deemed foreign invaders. Our side was better equipped, better paid, and better mentored. And they were utterly useless when it came to the fight. Almost 60,000 Americans died in the attempt to convince the Vietnamese to resist communism and when we left, so did the national will to resist. In Iraq, the forces we are training, equipping and bled for are still not up to the task of national defense. Car bombs rip through heavily populated civilian areas and kill and maim hundreds of non-combatants regularly. If that’s not enough to make the Iraqis fight back, we’re wasting time and money. The Afghans defeated the colonial British in the 19th Century. They defeated the mighty Russian army in the 20th Century. They are fighters: of that, there can be little doubt. So how come they aren’t fighting? How come we need 30,000 more Americans in the breech? How come equipment and arms aren’t enough to make the Afghans resist the Taliban? Why does one side in all these wars know how to fight? Why isn’t that side our side?
When the American colonies decided they’d had enough of British rule, they revolted. They were farmers, merchants, and shopkeepers. They were ill-equipped and not well led. With only marginal external aid, they were able to persevere and defeat the world’s most reputable military force. The Americans won because they were true to a cause. They believed what they were fighting for and that made it worth dying for. They were defending their homes and their land so they fought with an intensity and purpose that overrode their military shortcomings. That intensity, that purpose, that determination is not something that any foreign ally could have instilled in the colonists, any more than we can instill it anywhere else in the world.
We can fight for Iraqi democracy. We can fight to defeat the Afghan Taliban. We can fight to drive al-Qaeda out of Pakistan and we might even experience some temporary victories. But the wars in those countries will not be won by Americans any more than American democracy was earned by outside intervention. Those foreign wars will be won and the fight will be over when the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan decide they’ve endured enough assault on their freedoms, and not a day sooner.
Copyright by Buffalo Report, 2010