As we live in the age of consumerism the time has come to start choosing our wars more carefully, the cost we pay for them, the benefits we derive-both short and long term, to question more closely the reasons they are being fought, as well as the competence with which they are being fought.
There are of course no shortage of wars for the discriminating consumer to choose from starting with the largely bogus war on terror, the war on poverty, the war on global warming, the war for sustainable development, the war for population control, the war for energy conservation (as peak oil looms large) the war on drugs, the war on crime, and maybe even declaring war on Wall Street bankers for their utterly contemptible greed and malfeasance. And of course, the list goes on and on.
Then too, we might want to start a war on error for it seems our leadership is predisposed to error and poor judgment and that first and foremost they must be shown the error of their ways and led by their very prominent Pinocchio noses to a new beginning, a new set of priorities, that insures the world might be a better place at mid-century.
The first skirmish in the war on error would be to cancel, eliminate, decapitate and exterminate the war on terror, for it is largely a phony and inflated war. Among its real purposes are a make-work project for the overblown US military- industrial-complex and implanting the culture of fear. Serial warfare with largely manufactured enemies is a debilitating and expensive pastime. Americans should start questioning why their country is spending close to a trillion dollars (almost half the national budget) a year defending the country’s “national security” fighting wars half-way around the world against one of the world’s most impoverished nations, which of course, was preceded by another war against another impoverished nation that when all the bills are in is going to cost over a trillion dollars.
A hostage US president, like his predecessor, is launching another surge in another country and another war. The thirty thousand troops he is sending are woefully inadequate to do the job in a war that is lost and the continued violence will see the stability of the region simply spiral further downward and the conflict only become bloodier.
Quite bizarrely, he is planning to start bringing them home after eighteen months. The eighteen month time frame becomes even more bizarre when the deployment of these additional troops will be incremental and take at least eight months, so the surge will be a slow-motion surge. It will end almost as it begins and the Taliban will have had a great deal of time plotting and recruiting to counter it. It is hardly credible that this surge is going to accomplish in eighteen months what has not been accomplished in eight years of momentous and stumbling efforts. Further more the Taliban have one strategic weapon we do not- its called “patience.” As we pour billions of dollars down the sewer (to say nothing of lives lost) they will wait out the surge and choose their time and place to fight. They are on their home turf and will use it to their ultimate advantage.
Then too, the presidential claim that Al-Qaeda has to be eradicated is less than candid. His own security advisor has advised that Al-Qaeda has been virtually destroyed. To claim eight years after 9/11 that Al-Qaeda is still a threat to US national security has a certain pathos, like milking an old cow until she drops dead from having her tits squeezed too often and too hard. It also implies a lack of confidence in the country’s own elaborate Homeland Security apparatus and leads one to suspect there are other agendas lurking in the wings. The desire for avenging 9/11 is proving to be insatiable and the perceived threat to “national security” a shibboleth.
Too many politicians from too many countries (including my own) have made the odious claim that winning this war is essential to global security. It is a regional war fought for underhanded reasons. It is not a “war of necessity” but more realistically is an expression of stale-dated and corrupted foreign policy all the while consuming disproportionate amounts of human and increasingly sparse financial resources.
It is too rarely mentioned that Iraq and Afghanistan are merely the most recent involuntary franchises added to the eight hundred or so military bases the US maintains around the world. It is a myth the US will totally withdraw from either of these countries for the foreseeable future. The US has spent billions of dollars building military infrastructure in Iraq and is doing the same in Afghanistan.
This new surge really comes down to a face-saving/stop-gap measure that will prolong the agony of defeat when there are viable options. The first step being the unconditional withdrawal of US and NATO troops, secondly the declaration of Afghanistan as an international protectorate under the auspices of the United Nations and the installation of a new provisional government. But of course the underlying motives for this war prevent any mediated settlement.
The American led emphasis on counterinsurgency has clearly caused this war to go sideways. Instead of pacifying the the country the conflict has only become more enflamed, more complex and has spilled over into Pakistan. Had the focus been on peacekeeping and development there may very have been tangible progress toward a new Afghanistan by this time. But for eight years Afghans have been caught between warring factions and been given mixed messages by their supposed liberators who are also foreign invaders.
The indiscriminate use of pilotless Predator drones has been a profound error in this war. Anonymous USAF technicians sit at computers in New Mexico with the ability to shoot and bomb guilty and innocent alike with impunity. Surely, Predator drones can only inspire fear and loathing in these populations- not a great way to win the hearts and minds of the people you are supposedly there to help.
This is an ill-chosen war that diminishes us all. There have been too many killed too much torture; too much fear mongering, and too many deceptions. It is a squalid war stripped of any nobility or legitimate purpose.
If we are to choose our wars, what are the criteria for priorizing the wars we fight? The answer is easy: We fight the wars we cannot afford to lose. The war on global warming is arguably a war we cannot afford to lose. It is a threat no country is immune to and it really is a threat to global security.
It is also arguable the wars we must win are non-military. The “firepower” needed to win these wars is a genuine and robust multilateralism where nations work together to solve issues common to us all. Military wars merely distract us from these more pressing wars and increase the likelihood that there will be massive hot wars in the future precipitated by climate change, poverty, diminishing resources, and an inability to work multilaterally.
These new smart-non-military wars-are going to make heavy demands on our incorrigible and parochial political elites. They are going to have to first of all recognize the interdependence of the rapidly shrinking global village- no country can afford the pretense of multilateralism –it must be genuine. Building consensus instead of bombs is going to have to take precedence along with a renewed respect for the importance of international law and convention. NATO countries are going to have to stand tall and quit being the lapdogs of a beleaguered and corrupt American foreign policy. They are going to have to shun rhetoric and start dealing in substance. They are going to have to recognize the ultimate democratic value: Choice-that we do indeed have the ability to exercise it and define the world of our choosing through more progressive values; or, through our naked indifference and incompetence see its destruction.
Robert Billyard 2009 ©
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