All Flipped Around

I supported the war in Afghanistan and supported the war in Iraq - reluctantly. I don't subscribe to the typical West coast liberal charges of Bush's simple-minded, monetary interests in going to war in Iraq because I think it's narrow, un-informed, and largely irrelevant. I viewed it through the lens of how it would improve our situation in the war on terror. I thought that teaching a lesson to a-hole leaders would send a message throughout the world to not fuck around with us.

After reading Imperial Hubris, I'm beginning to think differently. I don't like back tracking and flip flopping, but this book has got me thinking WAY differently than before. His basic argument is that we are in a war against a determined and patient foe, who has been mislabeled as "terrorism." We are actually fighting a world-wide Islamic insurgency who has specific gripes about US policy toward the Muslim world. I used to hold the position that much of the Muslim world is simply anti-Semetic, anti-West and would blame us for their own problems regardless of our policy towards them. And perhaps this is still true. I guess the difference is how one ought to deal with such a situation.

The anonymous author argues that we ought to re-think and change our policies towards the Muslim world, not because it would be right to, but because the cost of our current policies are too high. It is not that they misunderstand us - they hate us. Bin Laden genuinely thinks we are an evil empire. And so do many other Muslims.

He also thinks we do not have a choice between war and peace. We are at war, because they have declared it upon us. Our choice is how we wage the war. In war, the best move is to attack the center of the enemy, it's capital, it's infrastructure, and so forth. In this war, we have yet to identify the center of Al Queda - they have no cities, no banks, no military factories. Anonymous argues the center of Al Queda is hatred of American POLICY. If we change our policies towards the Muslim world, get our troops out of Arabia, stop supporting the Royal Family and stop supporting Israel blindly, we will diminish his ability to provide specific examples of anti-Muslim polices and be unable to promote his attacks on Americans.

And then we should be brutal and savage in our war against all Islamic insurgents, causing them so much pain that they put down their arms and cannot bear to fight anymore. Our current "victories" are bullshit. We capture and kill a small percentage of the enemy and he comes back to fight another day. It's been like that for 30 years.

One of the most interesting facts he points out in his book is the examination of "terrorist" camps in Afghanistan. A very small percentage of the fighters who went through the camps were trained as terrorists, most were trained as soldier combatants. We are not facing a group of criminal terrorists. We are fighting a Sunni-Muslim insurgency that thinks of itself as fighting a defensive war against aggressive American for anti-Muslim policies. They are religious and fighting a religious war, similar to the motivations of nationalists, fascists, and other previous religious wars. He cannot stress enough that we are not fighting criminals, as many elites would have us believe.

We must get in the mind-set that this is a war of survival, not one that can be fought delicately. We will not be able to start democracies in places unsuited for it, we cannot stop genocides from happening, the best thing we can do is improve ourselves and live up to our own lofty standards and hope the world follows along. Otherwise, we risk becoming the target of intense and fundamental hatred and we become involved with messes we cannot help or improve. He espouses a neo-isolationism, that we need to "be willing to let let the flames (of nationalism and fundamentalism) burn themselves out whenever we are not in danger of catching fire ourselves. If we want to avoid the needless, thankless deaths of our own countrymen, we must learn to watch others die with equanimity."

Harsh. This guy is tough. He argues that we shouldn't make such a big deal out of war or killing or dying. Solider are paid to fight and to sometimes die. It's their job. It's our job to make sure they're doing for a useful reason. We shouldn't make such a big deal out of civilian causalties. This is a fact of war, a fact of life, and to ignore the horrific, savage history of fighting and dying throughout human history to think we can fight a "humane" war is nonsense. Our goal is to fight a smart war that we will win.