Books 100809

According to media reports the White House and Pentagon are trying to learn how to fight the war in Afghanistan after eight years of frailling away. Two books are at the center of debate. Vietnam, an American military and political disaster over 30 years ago is the subject of both.

One book’s thesis is that the military viewed the conflict as a quick victory and dragged the White House into all out war. The other book concludes that by 1972, after 16 years of fighting, the military had finally figured out how to fight insurgents, but the White House politicians ended the fight before the military could be victorious. This is similar to the German Army claims at the end of WW1, “The politicians betrayed our army.” The latter book is a current favorite of the American polmil.

The Bush administration also had favorite books choose to read orientalist tomes of an imperialist perspective. There is also Mao’s thesis “On War” detailing how a people’s war should be fought. Mao’s book was translated by a U.S. Marine officer in 1939 and ignored by the polmil until faced with another defeat to peoples’ wars. There are also books on the Persian, Greek, Mongol, British, and Soviet experiences in Afghanistan. The polmil probably ignores these books because they lost and can teach nothing of value. After eight years of war has an arrogant government just begun to do its homework, all these works were available before the invasion.

The polmil’s basic problem is that it still does not know who it is fighting. There are a great number of similarities between Vietnam and the Afghan War, but there are more differences. The Afghans are not Viet Cong, Chinese, Arabs nor Iraqis. The military is now attempting to impose its failed Iraqi strategy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not Iraq, Pakistan nor Saudi Arabia. The Taliban is not al Qaida nor are all Afghan insurgents Taliban.

America does not have one war in Afghanistan but many different conflicts requiring differing strategies. The coalition has over 100,000 troops in country and the Afghan Security force numbers over 200,000 against a U.S. military estimate of 20,000 insurgents. That is a 15 to one superiority and the military wants to double its force? The polmil may well need increased troop strength just to guard its supply routes through increasingly hostile countries to its landlocked battlefield.

The polmil’s arrogant behavior in the surrounding countries is turning potential friends into opponents. The military may not recognize it yet but it is the Br’er Rabbit to an Afghan Tar Baby.

It is the guys with pointed sticks the Doughboys, Dogfaces, Grunts, Joe-tent pegs, that always pay the price on an arrogant polmil intent on medals and glory. The government must consider these soldiers who do the fighting and dying for undefined objectives. They deserve better from their leadership.