The Iraq And Afghanistan Wars: Or, Life Is Good For Osama

Here it is, Christmas 2008, and Osama has got to be smiling in his Pakistan cave. Things are going just splendidly for his suicide bombers and acid throwers in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
After almost eight years of deficit spending, war-time tax cuts for the rich, the failure of “free” market pie-in-the-sky hedge funds, credit default swaps, derivatives, and other paper floating in the ether of greed, our economy has to be put on life support or receive the last rites.

Osama’s forces can stay home and watch our country swirling down the drain politically and economically—and don’t even have to travel far to kill infidels. Life is good for Osama.
Besides that, the president of the United States gets shoes thrown at him in Baghdad and Washington, D.C. The Baghdad TV reporter has a pretty good arm, but he missed Lurch with his size 10s. He was declared a hero anyway in most Arab capitals and brought out thousands of supporters to Baghdad streets because he had delivered the ultimate Muslim insult to the Great Satan.
French writer Gilles Kepel, in his book “Beyond Terror And Martydom,” states emphatically that Osama and Lurch deserve each other because they have both embraced violence and brought “an endless shared nightmare” to the world.

Osama said he would attack us if we didn’t remove our troops from Saudi Arabia. Either we weren’t listening, or we didn’t care what he said. Well, he showed us that Muslim fundamentalists do not like foreign troops on their soil. (We wouldn’t want Muslim brigades stationed in Kansas either).

So then we “shocked and awed” Afghanistan and Iraq with billions of dollars worth of ships, warplanes, and guided bombs and kicked over the hornet’s nest of jihadists buzzing around the Muslim world.

Experts have said that the entire World Trade Center destruction probably cost Saudi businessmen about $400,000. The terrorists do things on the cheap. Ten men with assault rifles effectively closed down Mumbai, a city of 19 million, for a week and almost caused a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. We are now at about $750 billion for both wars, and we are losing.

Osama is smiling over conning George Bush into attacking Iraq. The suicide bombers are still blowing up kids in Baghdad and the Iraqi “government” is arresting Iraqi Sunni generals and supporters who are trying to revive Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party that ruled Iraq for 35 deadly years. Life is good for Osama.

Even Alexander the Great Couldn’t Conquer Afghanistan, So How Could We Expect Donald Rumsfeld The Mediocre To Do It?

History tells us that no outside force has ever completely controlled Afghanistan. It’s too bad the neocons and George Bush, in their arrogance, didn’t bother to read history. The Pashtun tribe, which still controls the mountains of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, chased Alexander the Great, a pretty good military man, out of the area in the 4th century. Pashtun archers almost drilled him before he escaped.

In the 16th century, the Pashtuns defeated the Mughal Emperor Babur who thought it might be an easy touch. The Brits, trying to establish a worldwide empire, invaded Afghanistan in 1839, took Kabul easily, and settled in for a long nap. But soon British troops were being harassed and by 1842 the Afghans had chased all Brits out of Afghanistan. Only one officer escaped to tell his government what had happened.

But the Brits are famous for stiff upper lips, so they tried to subdue the country again in 1878. They “won” again, but by 1880 figured out that they still couldn’t control the tribesmen of the area. A British officer described the defenders of the Khyber Pass as “rapacious, untrustworthy, and lawless by nature. They are constantly at feud with one another, but are always ready to unite in defense of their independence.” British troops called the Khyber Pass “35 miles of Hell.” It still is.

In 1979 Russian forces moved in at the “invitation” of some Afghan rebels. Afghans eventually rid the country of 100,000 well-trained Russian troops supported by tanks and helicopters. The Russians have never revealed how many thousands of their troops were killed and injured. The Afghan “adventure” ended in 1989, and many political scientists believe the Russian defeat was the main factor in the breakup of the Soviet Union.

We should have paid more attention to the Russian general who advised us after we had attacked Afghanistan that we could bomb Afghanistan into the Stone Age in a week, but that “we would leave within ten years with our tail between our legs.” I believe it. We have just two years to go before our tail drops.

Afghanistan: A Vietnam With Mountains Instead Of Jungle

Can we ever defeat Afghanistan politically? Not unless they educate themselves. The illiteracy rate among all Afghans is 56 percent, but in the region that the Taliban and the fundamentalists control it is 82 percent among men and 97 percent among women. The per capita income in the country is $500—but it is only $250 in the mountaneous border area.

In the border area where Osama is supposed to be “camping,” Taliban members with bamboo canes act as supervisors for the Department of Virtue and Vice. If you are caught without a prayer cap, the immediate fine is $2, two days pay. Men without beards are beaten on the spot with canes. Are you wearing pants that fall below the ankle? That sin is worth several whacks with the cane. The Taliban are everywhere, enforcing the thousands of rules of the Muslim sharia (law).

Pedestrians are stopped and searched for music CDs, radios, and weapons. The bazaars have weapon checkout stations like a restaurant has coat checkouts. They will “check” your weapon for a 20-cent fee. The Taliban militia take roll call at evening prayers. If you are absent without a good reason you are fined $7.15, or about the equivalent of a week’s pay. The tribes in the area also support honor killings of women who commit hanky-panky. Evidently there is no honor among men, so they can be dirty young and old men without penalty.

How Many Years Shall We Stay In Afghanistan?

With what is happening in Iraq now that we’ve “won,” I think we have about a five percent chance of avoiding a civil war among all of the competing elements. How can a Shiite government survive in a Muslim world which is 85 percent Sunni? They have been killing each other for over 1400 years.

Just last week, 35 Sunni members of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, including four generals,were arrested and charged with trying to reconstitute Saddam Husseins’s old Baath Party. It’s a very bad sign.

But Iraq’s story is only slightly different than Afghanistan’s.

General David McKiernan, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, says we will need about 60,000 American troops to get to the “tipping point” where the Afghan police and army will be able to provide civilian security. He says this will take three or four more years. I think we should declare victory and come home.

I don’t think there is any way we can defeat fundamentalist tribal members militarily in a region with 10,000 to 25,000 ft. mountains. The whole country has few roads and only 15 miles of railroad track. Only 12 percent is arable. There are approximately 400 tribal groups, militias, druglords, religious leaders, warlords, insurgents, and other trouble-making “organizations” that an occupying force must deal with all at once. Good luck, General McKiernan.

Afghanistan produces 93 percent of the world’s opium crop. Drugs have never been an incentive for good. Even the president’s brother is reputedly involved in the drug trade. Whatever happened to our billion dollar spy satellites that can read license plates from space? Or can’t we hire Google mapping to watch these guys?

A recent story of how 15 American Special Forces troops fought a pitched battle with insurgents on top of a 10,000 ft. mountain top indicated that we are using the wrong strategy in “winning” the Afghanistan War. So much heroism was displayed by our troops that 11 of the 15 were awarded the Silver Star and two the Bronze Star.

Most of them were badly injured. But to what end? Does sending squad-sized patrols up skyscraper mountains make any military sense? My military training, although almost 55 years old, says no. This is the jungles of Vietnam all over again.

The terrain was so steep and rugged the helicopters couldn’t land in the drop zone. The troops had to jump out loaded with 60-pound packs to an area covered with razor-sharp rocks. Over 70 close air-support missions had to be called in to save the squad from annihilation. In order to get our wounded out, they had to climb down a 60 ft. cliff to an area where a helicopter could land.

What is the point? There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and every time we kill one we make a thousand angry. When we invaded Iraq, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said we had just created another 100 Osama Bin ladens. I think he was right.

How Long Will We Police Iraq and Afghanistan?

This scene in Kirkuk, Iraq says it all about both countries. Arab, Turkmen, and Kurdish students attend schools—but never at the same time. There are three sets of principals and teachers. The Arabs come when the Kurds finish their lessons. The Turkmen follow the Arabs. Three different languages are spoken.

They pass each other without speaking. Occasionally they kill each other. After school they return to their areas, separated by concrete blast walls, barbed wire, and armed guards at checkpoints.
Good luck, General David Petraeus and General McKiernan, but it sounds like an impossible situation to me. The only way we can ever wipe the smile off Osama’s face is by leaving both Iraq and Afghanistan. Only then will we have a chance for a real “victory” over terrorists.

Another sign of disaster: Iraqi officials threw a party for Christians and Muslims last Saturday in Baghdad. They were outnumbered by the security detail protecting the party.