It is all a rather customary sort of performance. Well polished by repetition over the past few years.
Pakistan's President Zardiri will join in the chorus by once more deploring the American UAV launched missile attacks on Taliban, al-Qaeda and their ilk. He will sing (no doubt in perfect harmony with President Karzai) that these attacks kill "innocent" civilians and turn public opinion ever more in favor of the "extremists" of Taliban and other Islamist jihadist entities.
Arms around each other's shoulders (metaphorically only) the two presidents will sing a sad song of how the American way of fighting a war makes their job of defeating the (take your pick) "extremists," "militants," or "miscreants" harder, perhaps impossible. It is so handy to be able to offload the responsibilities of the Afghan and Pakistani governments for defeating the Islamist jihadist threats which are poised to overwhelm the two countries onto the United States.
There is no need for Karzai to admit that his own corrupt, inefficient and virtually impotent government is in any way a contributor to the reemergence of Taliban. There is no requirement for Zardari to admit that his own military is not too excited, or even really willing to fight Taliban up close and personal or that his country's intelligence service is neck deep in Islamism and has been for years the prime sponsor and facilitator of Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As long as the US kills some people who are arguably civilian in status there is no necessity for either government to acknowledge any sort of fault, flaw or lack. There is no need for either to get a grip on the realities confronting their countries. They might even be able to assure themselves and each other that if only the Americans would stop killing people peace would break out and the status quo would continue forever more.
Both Mr Karzai and Mr Zardari must find comfortable reinforcement for their delusions of adequacy and hallucinations of sole American responsibility for the situational degradation in both countries from the hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing position of the High Minded and Lofty Thinking folks of the US and European elites. Both of these loose assemblages of the tender-hearted are of the outspoken view that the American way of war is at the least unethical and perhaps criminal in its use of air and indirect fire delivered munitions.
Certainly the "just-war theorists" of recent vintage are convinced that any use of air delivered munitions or employment of indirect fire weapons is disproportionate in their effect upon civilian bystanders as compared with their military utility. Indeed, the most radical of these specialists in military ethics contend that soldiers must run the risk of (significantly) higher losses to assure no civilians caught in the battlefields of asymmetrical conflict are harmed.
The out-to-lunch bunch of "just war theorists" appear to be unaware of a major, even defining, feature of guerrilla war. The guerrillas seek cover and concealment among the civilian population. They will take positions within a village. They will place weapons in schools, religious structures, homes. If hard pressed, the guerrilla will drop his weapon and blend seamlessly in the civilian population.
All guerrillas at all times in wars large and small have done these things. Even on the guerrilla margins of our own War of Independence, the American patriots hid among the unarmed citizenry, concealed weapons and munitions in civilian homes, businesses, farms. (This sort of unsporting behaviour annoyed the British royally. They complained that our rebellious rabble just didn't fight fair.)
Over the past century or so with the growth of the mass media there has been an increasingly evident strategy developed and employed with ever greater sophistication by guerrilla insurgents. It surpasses the mere use of civilians as camouflage, cover and concealment. The newer strategy is the use of civilian bodies as a means of discrediting the counter-guerrilla forces, mobilizing public support for the guerrillas and giving the status quo forces including external supporters a negative image in the eyes of the world's public.
In short, the guerrilla insurgents seek to use civilian deaths to offset, even render counter-productive, the status quo force's advantages in weapons, combat support equipment, organisation and training. Civilian corpses become the weapon of choice, even the war-winning weapon.
This approach, the callous exploitation of civilian deaths for political-military purposes plays directly against the strengths of a firepower heavy, aviation heavy force such as that deployed by the US in (to use the new term) "overseas contingency operations." It also turns the strengths of the Israeli Defense Forces including the IAF into liabilities as illustrated by recent events in and around the Gaza Strip.
To the extent that either or both Mr Karzai and Mr Zardari whine, bitch, moan and complain about the American use of air power they are reading from their enemy's playbook. To the extent that Americans and Europeans of a High Minded sensitive mold echo the plaints of the many spokesmen for Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and related groups, they are advancing the bloody agendas of these Islamist jihadist groups whether intentionally or not.
The US military or, for that matter the ground force component of the IDF, could win against their guerrilla and terrorist adversaries without the use of either air strikes or indirect fire weapons. But they could only do so at a high, perhaps very high, cost in friendly lives. To the "just war theory"crowd and others who are simply against war, any war against any enemy at any time, this is an acceptable alternative.
It is acceptable because it would make war, even a just war of self-defense against an enemy who does not shrink from causing civilian deaths in wholesale lots, impossible. The American public, the Israeli public, the populations of the several Western European states all balk at the prospect of a high butcher's bill. For all of these publics a high body count war is simply unacceptable. No government would survive a war which costs too much blood.
The reasons for this rejection of war which costs too many lives is deeply rooted in the historical experience of each country.
To consider only the United States, it is necessary to look back at the War Between the States. This internecine conflict cost North and South an aggregate of more than 500,000 lives, almost all combatants. To put this in perspective, the combined military age male populations, defined as men of good health between fifteen and fifty years old of the Federal Union and the Confederate States was less than twenty million. Combined with the estimated number of seriously wounded, the casualties amounted to nearly ten percent of the eligible population.
The US tacitly swore, "Never again!"
The force of this "never again" was demonstrated seventy-five years after the Civil War ended in how we went about fighting World War II. The US would use any amount of firepower, destroy any number of civilian facilities in order to save a single American life. Where the Germans or British would send out a combat patrol to probe enemy strength and positions we would reconnoiter by fire. Other armies would use a patrol to counter a small enemy concentration. We sent an artillery barrage down range. Or called in tactical air support.
In a highly controversial move at the time, the US ordered the bombing of the Monte Casino monastery. We couldn't believe the Germans were not using the ancient cultural monument as a defensive position (they were not) and decided to bomb first and ask questions later. (The result was the Germans put defensive positions in the rubble and turned the place into a killing field without equal.)
While Monte Casino was an extreme example, the principle it illustrated was followed throughout the war. The US military with the full support of the government and We the People was willing to destroy villages, city districts, cultural monuments if doing such would save the lives of our troops. We knew perfectly well that civilians were repeatedly caught in our bombardments and just as repeatedly died. Not just German or Italian civilians but French and others as well.
As Sherman was reported to have said, "War is hell."
We followed the same heavy firepower means light losses approach in Korea to the extent that villages simply disappeared (along with the defenders and hapless residents) under the weight of American artillery and bombs. Other members of the UN forces complained. Journalists from foreign media viewed our actions with disgust. But, as far as We the People were concerned, it was all just jake as long as American lives were saved.
Generations of American commanders down to the present day have been schooled in the tradition of expend-munitions-save-lives. Our doctrine and tactics are biased in favor of using fire not men to accomplish military objectives.
And, get a firm grip on this one, bucko: The highest priority for any American commander in the wars of the United States, including the present one in Afghanistan is the saving of American lives. Period. The reason for this is simple: We the People will not accept the deaths of our troops in far away wars which are being waged in support of policy.
As was shown in graphically in Somalia when a very small number of Army Rangers were killed in a poorly planned and executed raid on a local warlord's headquarters, even a minuscule number of corpses in cammies causes such public revulsion that immediate withdrawal is demanded. The debacle in Mogadishu particularly coming so quickly after the bloodless "victory" of Desert Storm constituted a lesson learned too well by American commanders and political decision makers.
In a very real, if not articulated sense, US doctrine and tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan are still being held hostage by the dead Rangers of Somalia. And, please note this, folks, the other side, the Islamist jihadists, have been well aware of this reality all the subsequent years.
On the other side of the fence, the side occupied by civilians living in an area of American military operations, the situation is quite different. As we learned, or, more properly, should have learned from the World War II experience in Germany, civilians are infuriated by aerial bombardment. Their fury is not turned against their government or the soldiers who are the (indirect) target of the bombing.
No. The civilian anger is directed against those who drop the bombs. And, those who fire the artillery. Those who inflict death and fear from positions of safety.
The lesson of World War II, and Korea, and Vietnam is the same. Bomb civilians, rocket civilians, take civilians under artillery fire, and they turn against those who drop the bombs, fire the rockets, pull the lanyards on the artillery pieces. Unless and until the death toll and accompanying misery reaches such a level as to cause pervasive war weariness, the civilians will turn more and more against those who kill with the bravery of being out of range.
These two realities capture the US, and, for that matter, the Israelis and any European country whose forces are engaged in a distant and ambiguously purposed war, in a very real bind. A dilemma without easy solution.
Under the politically rooted imperative to spare friendly lives, the Americans must resort to air strikes, artillery bombardments. Winkling out shooters from positions in civilian compounds means politically unacceptable casualty levels.
At the same time even with the best will, the best planning, the best technology available there will be civilian casualties. No bomb, no rocket, no artillery shell stops and asks a person's identity and status before exploding. Even if not intended, even if totally unwanted, there will be civilian death, civilian fear, civilian misery. And, civilian anger directed against us.
Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and all the others know this perfectly well. They use tactics which are designed to assure that we take unacceptable casualties with the result they win. Or, we inflict civilian casualties--again with the result they win.
It is a damn tough circle to square.
The only way out is for the Obama administration to undertake two unpleasant and very demanding actions.
The first, the easier, is to set the Karzai and Zardiri governments down and explain some facts of life to them.
Mr Zardiri and his collegues must understand that unless and until the armed forces of Pakistan can demonstrate a credible capacity in the field to go to the FATA and abate the nuisance there, we will continue to take all necessary measures to kill Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders and trigger pullers alike. We will do this with UAVs or other air platforms unless we are allowed to use Special Operations forces to do the job on the ground.
Mr Karzai must be brought to realise that we have no option except the use of air strikes under some conditions. He has to accept the reality that the more he wails and moans, threatens or complains, the more he is helping Taliban. If he continues to be Taliban's Man in Kabul, then there is little reason for us to continue propping up his government. We can shift to a purely punitive expedition approach and he can pick up the wreckage after we have killed enough Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders and minions.
The second, harder job is that of explaining to the American public--particularly the High Minded and Lofty Thinking--that the only alternative to the use of air strikes is the acceptance of higher levels of death and injury to American personnel. This would, almost by necessity, be followed by a decrease in American military morale to include retention rates. American troops have become quite used to protecting themselves by using our firepower advantages.
There is no realistic probability that the Obama administration can or will make the attempt. There is no high probability that the attempt, even if made, would work. The adversaries of the US have found the vulnerability in the American way of war. They are exploiting it effectively just as Hamas did during and after Operation Cast Lead. It is to their credit that they are doing such--and doing it so well.
It is to the discredit of Mr Karzai and Mr Zardiri that they are cooperating so eagerly and so completely with the plans of their enemies.
No comments:
Post a Comment