Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 08/21/2010 2:24:38 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
Russia waged a disastrous nine-year war in Afghanistan. In its ninth year, is the U.S. faring any better?
In 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban government in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center. In 2010, according to a recent poll by the Associated Press, roughly 6 out of 10 Americans disapprove of Obama’s “good war,” which has seen the loss of over 1100 U.S. lives.
In September 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, taking its airfields and executing its president, H. Amin. Within 9 years, the Soviets lost close to 15,000 soldiers in the unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan before exiting in defeat.
In October 2009, General David Petraeus remarked that America was mindful of history in its military campaign against Afghanistan, and “certainly [wouldn't] try to do what the Russians did.”
Yet after nine years, the similarities between the two campaigns and the culture surrounding them are striking.
Resistance From Other Nations When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, it had a powerful detractor: The United States. President Jimmy Carter opposed the invasion, which resulted in cancelled grain shipments to Russia as well as a boycott of the 1980 Olympics. The U.S. began supplying weaponry to the Afghan offense, “openly supporting a dictatorial Islamic regime,” as military historian Major James T. McGhee put it.
Over the past nine years, France, Great Britain, the Dutch and others have all pulled their forces from what the Bush administration dubbed the “Coalition of the Willing.” This was a tacit global disapproval of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. By July 2010, the conflict was widely understood to be “America’s War.”
Common Enemy Afghanistan’s tribal culture is a notoriously complex web of ethnicity and religious practice. Yet, no matter how disparate the cultures seem to foreigners, they unite against common enemies. In the eighties, they fought tirelessly against the “godless Communists.” In this decade they have fought the “Great Satan.” There is a religious sentiment to both derogatory statements, suggesting any war waged on Afghan soil will be a war against Islam.
Immoral Tactics In addition to placing time bombs in toys then gifting them to children, the Soviet troops enacted a “scorched earth” military campaign. They burned crops and towns, forcing up to three million Afghans into tent cities, where the men were recruited then trained to fight against their Soviet oppressors.
The United States counterinsurgency effort, which has been lambasted by Vice President Joe Biden, who suggests a radical shift in military policy to counter-terrorism, takes a seemingly peaceful approach when compared to, say, putting a bomb in a teddy bear. But the U.S. Predator drone strikes mar this humanitarian effort.
Targeted killing has dotty history at best, as detailed in Jane Mayer’s excellent The Predator War. Innocent victims are regularly killed during misfired targeted strikes. Mechanized killers are the stuff of nightmares, but have become a daily reality for the Afghan people.
Then there is the U.S.’s most powerful opposition: its own citizens.
Unsurprisingly, U.S. citizens abhor the loss of U.S soldiers, and “losing lives” is an argument that riles up all Americans on the right and left. The culture war aggravators, from politicians like John Boehner and Rahm Emanuel to pundits like Sarah Palin and John Stewart, give the impression the U.S. is a divided country whose citizens merely tolerate one another, and that our unifying principle must be the purchase of similar products like iPods and movie tickets. But we do the draw the line at the death of fellow countrymen. And we do not find dignity in the deaths of this war.
Why? Because nobody knows what’s supposed to happen if we win in Afghanistan. It’s an abstraction, and we find this intolerable.
Have you ever googled “Winning in Afghanistan”? I have, and here’s what pops up: “Stanley McChrystal: No One’s Winning in Afghanistan.”
Google “What happens if we win in Afghanistan?” and you will not find an answer. Sadly, if you directed the question at the highest levels of our government, you wouldn’t get one, either.
“This is what we get for not going nuclear on Day 1.”
T.C. If not nuclear it should have looked nuclear on Day 1.
There is no point in Freedom allowing some sort of half-assed truce with Tyranny.
There is no common ground between Light and Darkness.
None.
That was kind of deep and insightful. I may have to revise my opinion of you.
Don't strain yourself, but thanks.
Wow. I didn’t know that. In a sane world, the so-called media would be all over this.
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