The "Global War on Terror" has been going on for almost four years (three years, ten and a half months). For all the sturm and drang from both the left and the right, there have clearly been some successes (no subsequent attacks in the US, toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan, the removal of Saddam Hussein) and failures (bombins in Spain, Indonesia and Britain, the revival of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the almost uniformly negative view of the US in the rest of the world).
However, I want to ask a blunt question: when does the war end?
I've been mulling over this question for a while, but finally got around to articulating it as a result of this New York Times story, which discusses the fact that many members of the military are confused and upset that in this "global war" the only sacrifice being made is by them (and their families and communities), but not by the rest of us:
The Bush administration's rallying call that America is a nation at war is increasingly ringing hollow to men and women in uniform, who argue in frustration that America is not a nation at war, but a nation with only its military at war.
From bases in Iraq and across the United States to the Pentagon and the military's war colleges, officers and enlisted personnel quietly raise a question for political leaders: if America is truly on a war footing, why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?
There is no serious talk of a draft to share the burden of fighting across the broad citizenry, and neither Republicans nor Democrats are pressing for a tax increase to force Americans to cover the $5 billion a month in costs from Iraq, Afghanistan and new counterterrorism missions.
It has been abundantly clear that this administration has chosen to take a very low-key approach with respect to the homeland during this "war". No sacrificed was asked for after Sept. 11th. I have a vague memory of Bush asking everyone to go back to shopping and work (I can't find a quote); asking everyone to return to a normal life.
At the same time, the Army (less so, the Navy and Air Force) has been stretched to it's limits. We have seen the largest call up of reservists/guard units posted overseas in half a century, and exploding bill (that no other country will help pay, in contrast to the last Gulf War) that no increased taxes are defraying (the first time in US history that taxes have not increased during conflict). The disconnect between the military's sense of urgency and the rest of the country's is profound.
This disconnect cannot, as the sentiment behind the NYT story makes clear, continue. The drain on morale that this situation creates is worsening, not getting better. Given that the Army is made up of citizens, a growing disconnect between them and the rest of the country is both a political and a moral problem.
The disconnect is that the military has been told, and is waging, a war while the rest of the country is at peace. One, or the other, must change.
What are our aims? Who are we trying to defeat? We can't really be trying to wipe out terrorism all over the globe. Terrorism has been going on for several millenium. Remember the Roman Legions and the Roman Empire? Do you know where the word "decimate" comes from? To paraphrase a graduate student, how many languages (Latin) even have a word for killing every tenth person. Thats the defintion of "decimate". If you march through a village, and wipe out a tenth of the people, they aren't likely to annoy you further. Of course, you achieve this "peace" through terror: the fear that you might come back and kill the remaining nine tenths. Terrorism, as a policy, has been around forever, and we won't win any war against it.
Are we fighting Islamic extremists? That seems to be the general understanding, but how do we know when we've won that fight? We have Christian extremists (Koresh, IRA), Muslim extremists (Al Qaeda), Hindu extremists (in India), Native American extremists (AIM, back in the 1970s, but still around I think), Shinto/Japanese extremists (they had a hand in starting WWII, and are still extremely nationalist, xenophobic, and militarist today). What religion doesn't have extremists? Those, like terrorism, have been around for as long as the major religions have been, and are not likely to go away.
So, what, exactly, are we fighting to achieve? How do we measure our success? How do we know when we've won?
This, I would argue, is the fundamental root of the disconnect that all those soldiers quoted in the NYT article are grappling with. They are on a war footing (and worried about fighting the daily battles with extremists on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and holding their families together while they do this; they don't have time to worry about grand strategy issues like this question), while we are not.
I have no pat answers; I'm not writing a post that reflexively argues against the war on terror, or argues to bring the troops home. It's more of a plea for some sort of rational understanding of what the realistic goals we (as a country) hope to achieve. We can't end terrorism. We can't end Islamic extremism. Those are clearly unrealistic goals. So, then, what are the realistic ones?
This isn't my most articulate post. I'm frustrated by the lack of a national debate that takes account of what, to me, seem absolutely fundamental questions. This "war", as noted, has been going on for just under four years. In the 1940s, in that less than that time frame (Dec. 1941 to August 1945: that's three years and nine months) this country created an army to rival none ever seen, marched thousands of miles across the Pacific at the same time pushed hundreds of thousands of soldiers onto the European continent. And invented and used the atomic bomb. What have we accomplished in the equivalent length of time in this war?
We can't achieve the national consensus that the soldiers desperately seek until the country debates and agrees on the realistic goals of this latest use of our armed forces. We won't begin that debate until some of our political leaders (of either side) begin to address these questions.
Are we trying to create peace in Iraq? Who's peace? Do we really care about peace in Iraq, if we can reduce the threat of terrorism at home? How do we achieve that? Is a continued US presence in Afghanistan actually making us safer, or would the troops be of more use in Iraq (if we pull out, Afghanistan reverts back to chaos, but do we really care?) Are we legitimately trying to help other countries fight Islamic terrorism, or do we really just care about ourselves? Does our need for oil create a gaping weakness to attemps to minimize our footprint in the Middle East, thus reducing threats to us? How serious is the domestic terrorist threat?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but even if I did, the important answers are the country's collective responses, which would lead logically to clear goals and strategies, and a clear national movement to accomplish them. Which would reduce the disconnect between our military (fighting) and the rest of the country (not fighting). What we need is the beginnings of this national debate.
What I do know is that it is unfair to ask our military to put their lives on the line fighting for an inarticulate national policy. They deserve better.
Posted by baltar at July 24, 2005 09:15 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics