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TechnoratiIf we have not already lost this war, surely we are barreling headlong toward defeat.
Americans, of course, would have preferred that things turned out differently. We supported the invasion because something needed to be done. Initially, President Bush's decision to send in our troops was very popular. And, as is his wont, Mr. Bush continues to avoid any defeatist talk, reinforcing his belief that anything other than unvarnished optimism wouldn't be presidential.
At a White House press conference this year, in fact, the president stated unambiguously that America's goal should be "to help the people of that country to defeat the terrorists and establish a stable, moderate and democratic state that respects the rights of its citizens, governs its territory effectively, and is a reliable ally in this war against extremists and terrorists."
But that's just not happening, and Mr. Bush simply refuses to come to terms with realities that prevent the goals from succeeding. These realities cannot be wished or ignored away.
For starters, we know that violence and bloodshed are daily features of the lives of our troops and the people whose land we occupy. The fatality rates for American soldiers since January 2005 are twice what they were before that. Nonfatal injury rates have also skyrocketed.
Meanwhile, other injuries - of the type that have nothing to do with violence and everything to do with the suffering of daily tragedies, large and small - are undermining our ability to win the "hearts and minds" war. We exacerbate existing local tensions when we fail to meet civilians' basic needs; we turn potential friends into enemies. If electricity is unavailable for all but a few hours each day and clean water is scarce, who has the time or inclination to ponder concepts such as freedom and democracy?
Worse, many innocents are living on the run, refugees either inside their country or abroad. That's why there's so much violence in border areas, where arriving terrorists are spoiling for a fight and traumatized families heading in the opposite direction try to avoid further victimization. Naturally, al-Qaida continues to stir the pot.
As Peter Bergen reports in "War on Error," a recent, aptly titled New Republic piece, lethal violence is ramping up. "In 2006, IED attacks doubled, assaults on international forces tripled, and suicide bombings quintupled," he writes. "And 2007 is shaping up to be even worse, with suicide bombings up 69 percent from last year." The bloodthirsty operatives of al-Qaida, warns Mr. Bergen, are growing stronger and bolder.
Even an assessment published last week by Lisa Curtis and James Phillips of the conservative Heritage Foundation concluded, with regret, that U.S. leadership "has waned, leading to decentralization and fragmentation of the international reconstruction and stabilization process. In addition, poor governance and corruption in the Karzai government have fueled popular discontent, which the Taliban has exploited."
Whoa - Hamid Karzai? The Taliban? Sorry, but you didn't think the laundry list of problems above related just to the war in Iraq, did you?
The sad, embarrassing fact is that six years after the United States and its coalition allies arrived in Afghanistan, that country remains chaotic and unstable. This despite the fact that one of the main reasons we went there in the first place was to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks; he remains at large.
As Mr. Bergen notes, Afghanistan is half again the size of Iraq and more populous, and yet we spend a pittance there compared with the tens of billions we dump monthly into Iraq. Would this resource imbalance have been different if the former were sitting atop huge oil reserves?
Afghanistan is America's lost war - lost in the sense of failure but also in the sense of being forgotten. Even if by some miracle the situation in Iraq turned around 180 degrees during President Bush's remaining 15 months, our self-described "war president" would still leave office having lost one far-more-winnable war.
Is there any reason to think the much tougher war we still do talk about will turn out better?
Thomas F. Schaller teaches political science at UMBC. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays in The Sun. His e-mail is schaller67@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Sun
15 Comments so far
Show AllI think Europe gave up on America.
So the United States of Israel has now announced further sanctions against some Iran banks and Military Organizations as they are "supporting terrorism". Its time the world got tired of this sort of name calling from the USI. There is not sufficient authority, or evidence that Iran is involved in the sorts of terror that the USI is so obviously involved in Iraq. The world should shove this sort of sanction announcement right back in the faces of those making it, and instead institute their own sanctions against the USI. The USI sanctions are plain terror and extended war mongering, now to be extended against the people of Iran. It is the USI that is meddling in Iraq, and bringing terror to its people. If sanctions be necessary, make them against the US dollar and the major trading banks of the USI. These institutions are supporting gross massive terrorist activities, carried out by mercenaries and bombers, against the Iraqi people. Terrorism is not resistance to being slaughtered, or having ones neighbours being slaughtered. Ban the US dollar. I spit in the faces of Cheney, Rice and their oil terror Ponzi scheme. May their sanctions blow back and sink their own sick economy and sick minds.
Correction----Bush's war was NEVER "very popular." Journalists should learn the difference between their own wishes and the public's. (After all, covering a war is a lot easier than doing real journalism.) Phony polls were produced when even my friends and I round a few beers knew that the U.S. would be leaving Iraq and the Middle East with its tail between its legs...."78% of the American people support X...." NO POLL IN THE HISTORY OF THE U.S. EVER TALKED WITH 78% of the population, it cannot be done! But it sounds a lot more exciting (the only journo-criterion) than "78% of the 6 people in front of Louie's Bar...."
The war on terror was a misnomer for a war to occupy, pillage, and build empire. It was a terrorist war by a terrorist state, and was doomed to fail. It clearly shows that we cannot use the 19th century colonialist methods in the 21st century. Hopefully, the likes of Bush, his British lapdog Blair, and his new French poodle will learn their lessons, and would not repeat them in Iran.
At a White House press conference this year, in fact, the president stated unambiguously that America's goal should be "to help the people of that country to defeat the terrorists and establish a stable, moderate and democratic state that respects the rights of its citizens, governs its territory effectively, and is a reliable ally in this war against extremists and terrorists."
Too bad 'that country' he was talking about wasn't the USA.
Dichterfreund - Sorry I shot off these thoughts about Iraq before seeing the bottom quarter of the article which identified its subject as Afghanistan. I just get tired of people announcing that the war in Iraq has been lost as if that were a new insight; I knew it the morning the first assault was launched on Falluja, and our troops trained their guns on the population of a city, moving decisively from their (illegitimate) role as liberators to the role of imperial occupiers.
FYI, I was one of those few people who actively opposed the invasion of Afghanistan, and I do not recognize your claim or anybody's claim to represent "leftists." You think your way, I think mine, and where we differ, you are wrong.
Mark, the article's about the war in Afghanistan (understandable whoops, tho'); there were even fewer of us who opposed that war than opposed the one on Iraq, but anyone who recalled how the Soviets were exhausted, and how the US funded the very people it then used as bogeymen, opposed it. And the cheerleaders & the people chiding leftists then were the same lot chiding us now.
First Falluja lost the war. Abu Ghraib sealed its fate.
The war was evil and illegal from the start, but the irony is Bush had victory in his hands, and lost it due to hubris, stupidity and brutality. The Iraqi people were glad to be rid of Saddam, and if we had given them their country back right away, by holding an election and pledging to respect the sovereignty of a duly elected government, and if we'd offered them a helping hand instead of an iron fist, radical privatization and "shock treatment", the Iraqis would have thanked us and we would have parted as friends and allies.
Yeah, the war is lost now. It's just a question of how much bigger the catastrophe is going to turn out to be than it already is.
I don't think it's a matter of winning or losing a "war". It's a matter of establishing bases to control the oil. The war is just an excuse for it.
Bin Laden who?
Hey Bugs, don't expect to see Bush clearing brush during his retirement (assuming he doesn't become president for life)unless Stihl Chainsaw Co. and Ford's truck division pony up money for another opportunity for "product placement"(as the movie and advertising industry calls it).
The smart money is against winning wars. If a war ends the military industrial media complex's revenue stream ends.
If Universities aren't teaching thatin Econ 1A they should be returning half of the tuition money to students.
Now add a war with Iran. Think not? I hope not but the danger is our cowboy in chief wants a big finale before he goes riding off to clear shrubs. There is an ideologic to their madness. Seeing their own failure, ideolgues are trying to commit us to a military conflict with Iran ... while we still have the chance? Once we leave the mideast which seems likely once Bush is gone, the chance to take down Iran is over. If they can stick us with a war with Iran before they leave... then we are chained to it.
Now think of a draft... necessary for a war with Iran. Even if they decide another war can't be sustained, they may decide to use massive air power to 'set them back a dozen years'.
Now think of Bush riding off to clear brush...leaving us with all the borrowed debt, a destabilized mideast, three wars (saving the biggest for last when we are already overstretched and wearied...and broke), global warming, decaying infrastructure... and every thing else.
Now try not to think about it.
Between the tribal influences, the terrain, the poppies, the borders with Iran and Pakistan, the poverty, and the lack of education that enables such ideologies as The Taliban, it's doubtful anything is ever "won" in Afghanistan. One big question is how long do you stay once you go in. The answer is probably "indefinitely". The other question is, Which philosophy in America is in command of those American forces?
Of course, although a unilateral military invasion qualifies as a "war" insofar as it is an illegal war of aggression, it isn't a "real" war like the eponymous card game. So it doesn't tidily fit into the two-dimensional scenario of an armed conflict between nation-state armed forces, fought in battles or "rounds" that ends either in a knockout, or by impartial judges declaring a winner and loser.
I can't wait until the US "loses" this war one way or the other, in the sense that a lounge-lizard might whisper to the prettier girl of a pair, "Hey, babe, why don't you 'lose' your (ugly) friend and come back to my place?"
It's being lost in very concrete terms, too. Here are the coalition fatalities from earliest year to latest: 12, 68, 57, 58 130, 191, 193, making this year already the most deadly.
The US is currently badgering NATO countries to send more troops to Afgh.
Hey, how about asking Turkey?