War without Understanding

I’ve played with the title of this blog, beginning with “War without Mission” and substituting a dozen words – comprehension, understanding, purpose, meaning, goal – in place of “mission” and nothing seems to work any better than any single one of them.
by Charlie Leck

As new generations mature and take their place in American politics, the Vietnam War era seems to be fading from America’s memory. And, as history is forgotten new errors are made by those who consider our national involvement in war.

As young people, we marched in the streets protesting America’s involvement in Vietnam in the 60s and the 70s. We, who protested, seemed to understand the internal history of Vietnam better than our national leaders. We clearly saw that the war had no real mission. The war makers said it was to stop communism from spreading throughout Southeast Asia and from there to other parts of the world. They presented incredible scenarios of one nation after another falling to the communist monster. We argued back that communism would devour itself.

When America finally withdrew from Vietnam, defeated and embarrassed, we (the young) thought our nation had finally learned a lesson: War without a mission and a purpose is shear foolishness; and the mission and purpose must be solid and in keeping with the will of the American people. If the will of the people is not strong and based on their understanding of the war, the war will fail utterly.

Today in Iraq, that nation’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki has sided with the nation of Iran is supporting the government of Syria against its activisit, democratic protestors.

“We believe that Syria will be able to overcome its crisis through reforms,” Maliki said. He rejected American calls for Bashar al-Assad to step down. Even while most other Arab states are reducing relations with Assad, Iraq and Iran have moved in the other direction.

Iraq?
Mind you, this is a nation into which we have poured over a trillion dollars during our current war and rebuilding program with them. We’ve lost many hundreds of young men and women there and thousands have come home with life-long disabilities to their bodies and minds.

Remember the purpose of the war with Iraq – the mission – the goal – the purpose! Long faded from mind, we went there because we were told a big lie. Vice President Cheney and President George W. Bush convinced most Americans that Iraq was replete with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Somehow, even though it proved false, the war went on and on and on.

Afghanistan?
We went to Afghanistan to retaliate for the terrorist destruction of American property and life (9/11). Even when it was clear that we could not find Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan and that he probably was in Pakistan, the war lingered on and on and on (without purpose or mission). Today, after horrendous loss of life and limb, we search for ways to extract ourselves from the embarrassment of that war.

America had only a vague understanding of the cultures and values of these two countries. We had no ability to predict what the will of the people might be. Vice President Cheney predicted that the Iraqis would welcome us as great liberators. Of course, they did not. And the Afghanistan citizens today look at us in wonder – wondering what the hell we are doing there.

The wisest move regarding war that was made by an American President since 1941 was President Obama’s decision not to put American military boots on the ground in Egypt. Instead, he insisted the military involvement there had to be led by our allies or there would be none.

The first President Bush
War without a clear mission is foolishness! That was the stance of the first President Bush and he held to it firmly and kept us out of a messy involvement in Iraq years before his son finally led us into trouble.

Now we are engaged in two missionless, purposeless wars in Arab nations that we simply do not understand. And for all our troubles, Iraq’s ruling political leader has today slapped us squarely across the face.

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Snagged or Snarled in an Unwinnable War

Afghanistan worries the dickens out of me!
by Charlie Leck

The United States just doesn’t learn very well from its mistakes. I believe we’ve gone and done it again.

We never should have gotten ourselves involved in Vietnam in the late 50s and then escalated matters in the 60s. It was clearly a guerilla war and those are unwinnable. After all, there’s no opponent with whom to actually negotiate. The fight is against a force on its own very familiar land. They can be citizens and villagers one instant and dangerous enemies the next.

We’ve had the same example shown us in Iraq. There will never really be an end, for the U.S., to the war in Iraq. We will one day just leave, even as we did in Vietnam, and then the local forces will just have to work things out and stabilize their nation, just as happened in Vietnam.

And now we are in Afghanistan fighting a guerilla war. The enemy fights from land he knows well. He disappears and becomes an innocent civilian. He reappears and becomes a dangerous weapon, fully prepared to sacrifice his life in the most violent ways.

How did it all happen? Why are we there?

Steve Coll, in his remarkable book, The Bin Ladens, has a credible explanation. We were suckered in by the master of the sucker punch, Osama Bin Laden himself.

In the year 2000 Osama sent some of his Al Qaeda suicide bombers up against the mighty American destroyer, USS Cole, as it was anchored in a Mideast Harbor. The two attackers blew themselves up and took seventeen sailors with them and left approximately thirty others injured. Only a few months after the event Osama Bin Laden was quoted as saying:

“We did the Cole and we wanted the United States to react. And if they reacted, they are going to invade Afghanistan and that’s what we want... Then we will start holy war against the Americans, exactly like the Soviets.”

The terrorist did not get the response he wanted. He began plotting something more dramatic that would get the attention of the Americans and would lure them into his trap.

Osama Bin Laden wanted the Americans to come into Afghanistan, pursuing him, so badly that he began putting together an unimaginable plan to fly hijacked American passenger aircraft into a number of targets on U.S. soil. The initial plan called for planes to attack all over the U.S.. It was scaled back to make it both more realistic and to give it a higher possibility of success.

In October of 2001, Osama Bin Laden was interviewed by Taysir Allouni, a reporter for Al-Jazeera. Allouni asked about the killing of so many innocent civilians on 9-11.

“It is very strange for Americans and other educated people to talk about the killing of civilians,” Osama replied. “I mean, who said that our children and civilians are not innocents, and the shedding of their blood is permissible.”

The President of the United States readied a military plan. He would send our forces into Afghanistan to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. The trap was sprung. The mighty terrorist of terrorists had gotten his way. He promised to defeat the Americans even as he had overwhelmed the Soviets.

In October, only a month after the collapse of the Trade Towers, we almost bagged Osama in Tora Bora. He narrowly managed to escape. As the months and years advanced, Osama Bin Laden built his guerilla forces with his own wealth and additional funds supplied by nations in the Middle East that would enjoy seeing us defeated.

Now we are trapped in a murky war that has no mission and no end game. We’ve been deflected from our initial mission and our main purpose in going there – to get and kill Osama Bin Laden. Now we are involved in tribal politics about which we know so little, if anything. The enemy is indefinable and vague.

I fear that we have been trapped not only by Osama Bin Laden, but, as well, by history itself.