A recent Op/Ed in the New York Times editorial noted that for the year ending in September 30th, 2009 that a total of 160 active duty soldiers have committed suicide. As the Afghanistan and Iraq wars drag on, one wonders how much of the citizenry has forgotten that the nation is at war. Certainly, the families of soldiers killed in these conflicts have not forgotten this.
This wasn’t the case in the late 1930s as the United States watched as European diplomacy and negotiations collapse into World War 2. While many in Europe turned a blind eye to Hitler’s ambitions, once war broke out many believed that it was a matter of time before the United States got involved. This didn’t happen for years until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Americans didn’t want to get involved in the Second World War, and only when the sovereignty of the United States was at risk did the public support the United States entering the war.
The terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 provided a ground swell of emotions for public support for going to war against, well, anybody who looked like they might condone terrorist attacks or harbor terrorists. Since American intelligence was pretty sure the attack was launched from terrorists operating in Afghanistan, the Afghanistan war was launched about a month after 9/11. What began as a commando operation to find the terrorists involved, turned into an all out invasion of the poor nation.
The Iraq War which began on March 31st, 2003, almost a year and a half after the attacks on the twin towers, was undertaken almost as though the Bush administration was going after the “usual suspects”. Both of these wars were launched against foreign governments (albeit violently oppressive foreign governments) which had not declared war on the United States. Hence these wars were not condoned by the U.N. as a pure act of self defense. Rather, terrorists operating inside of Afghanistan had used the country to stage attacks against the United States. Or rather, terrorists had used the mountainous region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which isn’t ruled by anybody in practice, as a base of operations.
Are we still hunting Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in this region of the world? Not so much as attempting to help democracy take hold in Iraq and Afghanistan, in this way the war has become the United States imposing its governmental philosophy on foreign nations. As an American I believe that representative democracy is the best way to run countries, and that the atrocities by the Taliban against women were horrible. But these wars are costly in terms of human lives on both sides of the conflict and are beginning to look more and more like Vietnam than perhaps any other war.
There isn’t a dictator hiding in a bunker as he orders his army to continue to battle our troops in a war of attrition like World War 2. Rather, there is a fear that fundamental Islamic beliefs would over time give root to deep anti-Americanism and foster the development of terrorist training camps. Supposedly a democratic Afghanistan would not be a safe harbor for terrorists. However, how hard is it to setup a terrorist cell?
The 9/11 hijackers went undetected for months as they stayed in a motel within spitting distance of the National Security Agency in Maryland. Modern terrorists have become wise to using emails and cell phones and have reverted to more secure methods of communication. With proper training I am sure they could set up shop in almost any country in the world.
So why are we fighting these wars?
One of the goals of one of the architects of George Bush’s Iraq War was to nudge democracy along in the Middle East. It was hoped that a democratic Iraq that joyfully threw off the chains of dictatorship would start a domino reaction in other countries, such as Iran. This hasn’t happened yet, and now the goal is try to keep Iraq from dissolving into chaos.
And there are obvious concerns as to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the unstable region between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the unsteady relationship between India and Pakistan. Sort of like a shopping trip where you go out to buy one thing, but then decide on something else, has the US military decided, “Well, as long as were here in these countries we might as well . . .”
Morally, the case for continuing the wars in these countries is shaky as the reason for the wars has changed somewhat since their inception. Can the United States preemptively invade a country which is practicing a form of religion that it believes in its most fundamentalist interpretation could pose a threat to it later on?
The Unabomber, who was a mathematics professor, was undoubtedly a threat to our way of life. Should the United States military invade and occupy college campuses and ask that mathematics majors submit to electronic monitoring by Uncle Sam? Maybe this is an incorrect analogy, however, these wars are being fought on the assumption that the best way to beat terrorists is to attack countries which may express similar political viewpoints. A big unanswered question is what if these wars only make matters worse?
While President Obama has fairly blamed the Bush administration for the inheritance of a bad economy and two wars, the running of the wars is pretty much on autopilot as the US military has become hooked on winning these conflicts at almost any cost. Given that gung-ho military commanders won’t walk away from almost any conflict, it is the duty of the civilian leader of the armed forces to decide when things have gotten out of hand and the wars need to be wound down. Like U.S. presidents who inherited the Vietnam War, President Obama appears to be content with letting the war run its course without a firm objective and without an understand of what cost is too high for American families to pay.
Like many of predecessors, President Obama doesn’t want to be a president who “lost” a war.