Chronicle Of A Failure Foretold

 “I was reminded again how the men who start wars invariably live through them to justify the behavior that has left millions maimed and dead.” Jim Harrison

Saigon, 1975. Kabul, 2021. The motif of the limits of American military power is that of helicopters evacuating personnel from embassy compounds once thought to be impregnable, and permanent. 

I was opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan from the beginning. While the American reaction to the 9/11 attacks was understandable, it always struck me as an overreaction, misguided, out of proportion. I place the Patriot Act in the same category. The folly of trading civil liberties for the illusion of safety, and in the process creating a massive bureaucracy with a creepy name -- the Department of Homeland Security -- was sure to return to haunt us, and did in the summer of 2020 when protestors were snatched off the streets of Portland by DHS thugs in unmarked vehicles and uniforms without insignia or identification. I never consented at the ballot box to be kept under constant electronic surveillance by my own government. Homeland. The word has fascist overtones. 

Had 9/11 been treated like a crime America would not be scrambling to exit Kabul today. Nor would Osama bin Laden have been able to evade capture for ten years, hiding in plain sight in Pakistan. We were told that bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world, hunted by all of America’s major intelligence agencies, and with help from our “allies” in the region. I’m sure it will be fifty years before the full story about bin Laden is known, but my gut sense is that the reporting on the raid that killed bin Laden by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is nearer the truth than any official explanation by the US government. And, of course, the War on Terror didn’t end with bin Laden’s death. Over the course of two decades the lies told by the military establishment to Congress, the media, and the public about Afghanistan rival the lies told about Vietnam. We’re winning; progress is being made; we’re turning the corner; we can leave victorious once the local security forces are trained and equipped, indoctrinated with our fool-proof methods; all we need to completely turn the tide in our favor is a troop surge; all we need is to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Year after year. Thousands of Afghan and American lives, trillions of taxpayer dollars, wasted. 

Once the rather nauseating explosion of “thank you for your service” tributes, solemn moments of silence for our fallen heroes, and stadium flyovers by Navy F-14’s lost their novelty, the American people forgot about Afghanistan. Who could keep track of the Whack-A-Mole nature of the conflict, with the Taliban being routed one year only to return the next more potent than ever. Our victories on the ground were ephemeral; the Taliban had only to be patient, to wait. That was the way to outwit the overwhelming military power of the foreign invader. It worked against the Soviet Union. It worked against the United States, too. 

I’m struck by how often the most egregious blunders are conceptualized and sold by men and women with the finest pedigrees, educated at elite institutions like Harvard and Yale. The best and brightest of the Vietnam Era, the financial wizards who crashed the world economy in 2008, and the architects of the War on Terror, which was always meant to be evergreen. We’ve forgotten the inconvenient fact that the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were nationals of Saudi Arabia, but the United States could hardly launch a military invasion against our dear friends in Riyadh, not at the risk of losing access to Saudi oil. No, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney gave the Saudis a soft pass, as has every administration since. What was the first foreign country Donald Trump visited? Saudi Arabia. Hubris. Greed. Corruption. Rot. This is how global empires deteriorate and collapse. Under the crushing weight of stupidity and the mythology of their own infallibility. 

In my head I can still hear the voice of George W. Bush, the faux cowboy, as he justified the undeclared war against a country that had not attacked the United States; a country in a part of the world that most American citizens couldn’t find on a map or begin to understand; a country of regions, tribes, languages, dialects, feuds and traditions. Bush painted with a simplistic brush, good against evil, on our side or the side of our enemy, our benevolent god against their malignant god. A shocked and frightened nation bought the story. Now will come the excuses and justifications and retellings of the story, recast, not as a tale of colossal failure, but as a noble effort to bestow American-style freedom and democracy on a country that never asked for either. 

Who's Next?

Good Morning America led with the news that the America-born terrorist mastermind, Anwar al-Awlaki, had been killed in northern Yemen. George Stephanopolous and Brian Ross were beside themselves with excitement, and if you didn’t know they were talking about the assassination of a man never charged with a crime or tried in a court of law, you might have thought they were reviewing a particularly exciting Super Bowl game.

I don’t know if Anwar al-Awlaki was as diabolical as he is being portrayed in the American media, or if he is just being used to justify the American War on Muslim Terrorists.

The Obama Administration speaks with the same certainty about Awlaki that the Bush Administration spoke about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear and biological weapons and the direct threat they posed to America.

Let’s not forget that the Bush gang cooked the intelligence books to buttress their justification for the invasion of Iraq; let’s also not forget that the American intelligence community frequently gets it wrong.

Osama bin Laden. Anwar al-Awlaki. Who will be the next terror czar to be taken out by the United States or its proxies? Who will be the next to die because of his “potential” threat to the United States?

I’m not making apologies for terrorists, but there is something deeply disturbing about the United States ceding to itself the power and authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, wherever and whenever it wants. How do such actions make the United States safer? Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, and Anwar al-Awlaki is dead, but in killing them, how many additional martyrs has the United States created?

I felt a little sick to my stomach as I listened to George Stephanopolous and Brian Ross, watched as ABC’s slick graphics simulated how the American military’s technological wizardry tracked al-Awlaki’s every move. GMA’s infatuation with wizardry overshadowed any need to raise larger questions about the threat al-Awlaki posed or the legality of killing him without evidence or trial.

The website www.costsofwar.org estimates the monetary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions at $3.7 trillion. Six thousand two hundred and thirty American service people have died, thousands more have been maimed or scared for life. The number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan is routinely underestimated by the United States, and a reliable count of the number of wounded or displaced human beings is almost impossible to come by, though after a decade of continuous war, it stands to reason that the number is very large.

And as the War on Muslim Terrorists drags on year after year with no end in sight, as the number of innocent victims grows, so does distrust and hatred of the United States.

Satire: War is Hell

Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing Room, Washington D.C.

Members of the Committee file in and take their seats behind the dais. A few moments later, David Petraeus, incoming CIA Director, sits down at the witness table. Although he will soon be a civilian, Petraeus wears his dress uniform.

Dianne Feinstein (Democrat, Chairperson): Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us, General.

DP: No problem. War is hell, ladies and gentlemen, but our brave warriors carry on.

Saxby Chambliss (Republican): Amen, General. How’re things going in Afghanistan?

DP: We’re taking the fight to the enemy, hitting him hard where he lives and breathes; we strike fear in his women and children and make his animals cower at our feet. I think it goes well and I believe we can secure the country by 2024.

Daniel Coats (Republican): That’s fantastic news, General.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): General Petraeus, I don’t mean to rain on the parade, but we invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and you’re telling us it will have taken 23 years to secure the country by the time we’re done.

DP: You’re not a military man, Senator. You’ve never tested yourself on the field of battle against an enemy intent on blowing your brains out. You’ve never eaten MRE’s for weeks on end and crapped in an open latrine in a hailstorm. Al Qaeda has a foothold in Afghanistan, and is aided and abetted by the Taliban. Together, they are a formidable enemy, as cunning and merciless as any fighters in the world.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): How many Al Qaeda fighters do you estimate are in Afghanistan, General?

DP: Last time I checked there were 12. We may have taken one or two out since that point in time.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Do you mean 1,200 or 12,000?

DP: No, I mean 12, as in a dozen, although, as I said, we may have taken one or two out during night raids.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Let me make sure I understand…in all of Afghanistan there are maybe a dozen Al Qaeda operatives? How many US troops does it take to contain 12 Al-Qaeda fighters?

DP: A minimum of 100,000, not counting contracted support forces, CIA agents and private mercenaries. Don’t look so surprised, Senator. As I told you, these Al-Qaeda fighters are devilishly clever. I’m convinced some of them have invisibility cloaks like in the Harry Potter movies.

Daniel Coats (Republican): Let’s shift gears for a moment and talk about President Karzai…what’s you impression of the man, General?

DP: Well, it’s clear that most Afghans despise him and his family, and that he’s up to his eyeballs in the opium trade. He lies, he schemes, he cheats. He’s hopelessly addicted to smoking opium, totally unreliable when the going gets sticky, in short, the kind of tinhorn strongman the United States has always supported. Karzai can be sanctimonious when it comes to civilian casualties, but overall, not a bad guy. I’m encouraging him to take up golf.

Daniel Coats (Republican): Shifting gears again…what about Pakistan?

DP: A nation of two-faced liars and thieves. They take our military aid with one hand, support the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with the other. I curse them all. I’d like to put 150,000 combat hardened troops on the ground in Islamabad and teach those lying rag-heads a lesson they will never forget.

Saxby Chambliss (Republican): Well said, General, my sentiments exactly.

Dianne Feinstein (Democrat): General, some Americans have expressed concern about the cost in lives and money in what seem to be perpetual wars. How do you respond to these concerns?

DP: I don’t. War is hell. Get used to it.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Give us a sense of what is going on in Iraq.

DP: The flower of Democracy is definitely taking hold in Iraq. When necessary we take the fight to the enemy, hit him hard where he lives and breathes; we strike fear in his women and children and make his animals cower at our feet. If the current trend continues, our troops can come home in 2085.

Daniel Coats (Republican): That’s fantastic news, General.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Out of curiosity, what duties are American forces in Iraq performing?

DP: Our brave warriors stand on guard against undesirable elements in Iraqi society. Other than that, they spend their time playing softball, tennis and soccer, all indoors in air-conditioned comfort, of course. We’ve spared no expense to make our brave warriors comfortable.

Saxby Chambliss (Republican): Would you also call them gallant?

DP: I would. OK, ladies and gentlemen that’s all the time I can spare for you today. If you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch engagement with Sarah Palin.

War: The Real National Pastime

The other day I found myself thinking about the military mentality of the United States. Perhaps this is the reason why professional football is our national pastime; with its complex formations and carefully diagrammed plays, the communication between coaches on the field and those in the press box -- which is not unlike that between a platoon leader and a forward observer -- football is war-like. Broadcasters often refer to football seasons as “campaigns,” certain players earn the title of “warriors,” and top-tier quarterbacks are sometimes called “field generals.”

We like to declare war on conditions, objects and tactics almost as much as we do on other nations. Back in 1964, the Johnson Administration declared War on Poverty, spawning a slew of programs that widened the social safety net and provided minorities greater opportunities to get a leg up on the American Dream. Unfortunately, LBJ was as preoccupied with the war in Vietnam as he was with poverty in America, and the costs of propping up the corrupt government of South Vietnam against the communists up north hampered his administration’s efforts to eradicate poverty. Moral of the story: choose guns or butter, but not both.

Good old Dick Nixon continued many of LBJ’s anti-poverty programs, but also decided in 1968 that illegal drugs were a grave and immediate threat to the nation and launched the War on Drugs. Nixon was a law and order type, and in his view the hippies, anti-war protestors and black power advocates were amped on speed or freaked out on LSD and had to be stopped before all hell broke loose. The drug war continues to this very day, fought in our inner cities as well as our suburbs, with harsh legal remedies such as mandatory sentences that are partly responsible for jamming nearly one million non-violent offenders into the prison-industrial complex. The United States now has the distinction of being the undisputed World Champion of Incarceration, with more than two million people locked away. Despite millions of dollars spent on enforcement, eradication and anti-drug education, demand for illicit drugs is as rampant as ever, which is one reason Mexicans are killing one another to control lucrative drug routes to the American market. Lesson here: beware of unintended consequences. Second lesson: drop the hypocrisy and legalize the drugs that Americans are going to use anyway. The Volstead Act didn’t work against alcohol, remember? We came to our senses and dropped that bad idea; by now it should be abundantly clear that the War on Drugs is a total failure.

My favorite American war has to be the War on Terror declared by George W. Bush in 2001. War on Terror is a catchy slogan that no doubt captured the nation’s fear and need for revenge after 9/11, but I never understood how war is declared on a tactic. The most successful anti-terrorism efforts involve painstaking police work, intelligence collection and international cooperation, not full-scale military operations. But we needed revenge so Bush sent American forces to Afghanistan to root out the Taliban who were said to aid and abet al Qaeda, even though most of the 9/11 plotters were Saudis operating out of Germany. The overwhelming firepower of the American troops sent the Taliban packing (temporarily) and persuaded Bush (or was it Dick Cheney?) that it was high time to take out another purported sponsor of terrorism – Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Of course, it took a concerted campaign of monumental lies from the Bush gang to convince people that invading Iraq and changing the regime there was critical to winning the War on Terror. The governments of Great Britain and Togo, to name two, swallowed the lies and joined the Coalition of the Willing, but most people knew better and millions the world over took to the streets to protest. Bush carried on anyway, and it wasn’t long before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was crowing about Shock & Awe, and CNN and Fox were hyping the invasion as if it was a football game. Only when successful invasion became failing occupation -- and American casualties began to mount -- did cold reality set in. Lesson: think twice or three times before unleashing the dogs of war.

Well, if you can’t walk tall, at least carry a large stick. And we do. The American military is a colossus that straddles the planet, more ubiquitous than Coca-Cola. Some 280,000 U.S. military personnel (not counting private contractors) are positioned from Guam to Turkey, Greece to Greenland – 135 countries in all. Our economy may be second-tier and getting worse all the time, but for now we can still boast having the biggest stick in the world.

We love war and its trappings. Why else do F18 fighter plans streak over stadiums before major sporting events? Why are West Point cadets used as human props for presidential speeches? Why is such deference given to generals and admirals? We love military spectacle as much as the Soviets ever did. What we shy from are the human costs of war: images of dead civilians, flag-draped coffins being off-loaded from cargo planes, and photographs from VA hospitals of the wounded, the maimed, the burned and the forever shell-shocked.

Far too often we confuse brute military force with moral authority, deluding ourselves into believing that our military might is only used for just purposes.

If you believe that, then you must also believe that pigs will one day sprout wings and take flight.