At the coffee shop seminar this week, the well-known historian, Lucius Flatley, offered some comparisons of the current American involvement in Afghanistan with previous attempts by other world powers to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear. For good measure, he contrasted that bottomless pit with the quicksand of Vietnam.
Located adjacent to Pakistan, Afghanistan is a series of primitive settlements scattered throughout ungodly high mountains over an area about the size of the northeastern U.S. It is occupied by a collection of clans and tribes, most of which suffer from the ignorance, poverty, hatred, fear and superstition common to remote hill dwellers. Throughout thousands of years, no outsider has been able to bring true civilization to the place. Like some African frogs, it seems to secrete a poison that is sickening or fatal to aggressors.
Further, about 1,000 years ago the inhabitants were introduced to Islam, a religion not known for supporting human rights or advancing democracy, and a perverted form of Islamic teaching became the law of the land. Consequently, any concept of democratic government has remained buried under a glacier of ignorance and primordial religious laws. Since Afghanistan has never enjoyed any of the pleasures and frustrations of democracy at any time in the country’s long history, any concept of elective government is as foreign to Afghan natives as a digital camera to a Ubangi.
Nor does it suffer foreign invasion gladly. In relatively modern times, two other world powers have invaded that sad land, and their experience should be instructive to the United States. In the 19th century, John Bull struggled through two bloody wars in an attempt to subdue the recalcitrant natives. In a worth-noting presage of the current American adventure, the Brits used mostly mercenary troops, which can be compared with the “contractors” used by the U.S. today (the U.S. has more contractors in that country than military personnel.) The British leveled sundry native residences with state-of-the art weaponry – think of American gunships and unmanned drones – and they ruled through locals of dubious qualifications – think of Karzai and his relatives.
Britain finally came to its senses and left that ball of dung to its own cruelties, and for a half century the cry of the muezzin was undisturbed in the land and women were relegated to the shadows.
Then, a couple of dozen years ago, it was the turn of the Soviet Union. They, too, came a cropper. Thanks in part to American weaponry and money lavished on the native resistance, the Russians were to fail -and to leave the country dominated by a native group of by now experienced warriors known as the Taliban. Noted chiefly for their demented version of Islam, and famous for their medieval cruelty, they are the big dogs in that kennel to this day.
For further comparison, Professor Flatley provided the coffee hounds with an example of an earlier American foreign adventure that failed painfully.
Both Vietnam and Afghanistan have a border with a nuclear neighbor that can (and often does) provide succor and sanctuary for those we are fighting. The native leaders we chose to govern in both countries are either inept or crooked – or both. “Collateral damage” kills innocent bystanders in Afghanistan, as well as it did in Vietnam, which deeply disappoints friends and relatives. American strategy in both countries has fluctuated: In Vietnam we went from “pacification” to “hearts and minds” to “quit and skedaddle.” In Afghanistan we have gone from “War on Al Qaeda” to “nation building” to “meeting and greeting” the Taliban.
Common sense tells us that we are no more likely to be successful than were the British Lancers or Soviet attack bombers – to say nothing of the short-lived Republic of Vietnam.
Nevertheless, after nine years of wasted blood and treasure – like the Christmas boy who believes that somewhere under the pile of horse manure there is a pony – the U.S. still seems convinced that somewhere, somehow, it will accomplish some goal or other, by some means or other.
The truth is, there is no pony. Only manure.
Devil’s Dictionary ?quote of the week
FACT: For most people, an obstacle to belief – but one they find easy to overcome.
Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Gorham. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.
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