The Mouse that Roared

Ignoring the enemy is far worse than not having an enemy in the first place

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp
4/5/08

Putsch has kindly offered to send more troops into Afghanistan – a “significant” number, above and beyond the 31,000 already there. Given that the only real differences between Afghanistan and Iraq are those of scale, and the fact that America still has a few allies in Afghanistan, this is discouraging news.

Even more disturbing is the fact that Putsch made this commitment for 2009, when he will have left office.

In short, he has made a commitment that is likely to blow up in the face of the next president by tying him to a losing cause.

The Bushes are notorious for this kind of crap. George senior, in his final weeks in office, committed American troops to what was supposed to be a mercy mission in Somalia. You might wonder why George sent troops do do such a thing when he could have put it before the UN, or simply sent aid workers with tons of food.

It left Clinton with a fairly large contingent of troops in a place where they weren’t particularly welcome (the Somalis wondered why all the firepower just to drop off some flour and corn) and after a while, “mission creep” set in. In August, the US raided a local warlord, provoking his ire and a formal declaration of war.

Why this is ignored isn’t clear. The alleged media was already engaged in the Great Clinton Cock Hunt, and were far too busy sniffing President Clinton’s penis to see where it had been to worry about countries declaring war on the US. The American people were being even more isolationist and insular than usual, and probably didn’t care even if they had heard about it. And Clinton himself simply dropped the ball.

Nobody saw the Peter Sellers movie “The Mouse That Roared” or even read the book. The lesson was clear: ignore a small, powerless opponent, and he might shock you.

Americans, who didn’t even know they were at war in Somalia, were shocked at the sight of the bodies of US troops were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. They thought the US was just on a mercy mission. (In interests of full disclosure, I thought so, too, and I both read the book and saw the movie!).

Iraq and Afghanistan, at the very best, are quagmires that are costing America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, and defying the very reasons given for going in: to stabilize the region, and fight terrorism. The region is now far less stable than ever, and terrorists have learned not only that the US is vulnerable to “asymmetric warfare” (that would be resistance guerrilla tactics) but they’ve gotten much better at finding American vulnerabilities and exploiting them. You can be sure that other countries that see military faceoffs with America as a possibility, such as Russia and China, are regarding all this with keen interest.

The surge, which was never a success, just sank America deeper into it. And Afghanistan is one of the great neglected failures of American policy. When your foe actually controls more land than he did before you even attacked, this is not considered a glorious victory by strategists.

The Republicans have a habit of betraying the country and abdicating their duties just so they can foist problems off on the Democrats who succeed them just to keep them busy. Bush stuck Clinton with Somalia and an economy he did much to wreck. The last Republican Congress simply refused to do its constitutional duty and pass a budget, preferring to waste the time of the next Democratic Congress in 2007.

Putsch, owner of the worst failed presidency in American history, wants to leave his successor with a severe recession, two military quagmires, and a diplomatic mess. His only hope is to shift some of the blame for it all to the poor bastard following him.

And the Republicans will be eager to say “it’s been a year, and the Democrats haven’t done a thing to clear up these messes. We’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy is still bad, and people laugh at America.” They’ll probably even be pushing for a balanced budget amendment by July 2009, knowing them.

The next president will probably be a Democrat, and it looks like that Democrat will be Barack Obama. He’ll have his hands full dealing with the destruction the GOP has wrought, and the GOP will be anxious to pass responsibility – and blame – for it along.

Obama will need to move fast. He will need to get the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, and work with his allies to reduce western presence in Afghanistan and change the mission from fighting the Taliban to letting the Afghanis decide for themselves who will be their leaders.

McCain wants the troops to stay in Iraq for a hundred years if that’s what it takes. He’s talking nonsense. America will be bled dry and unable to maintain troops anywhere within a decade at the rate it’s going. Obama isn’t an idiot, and he’ll be fighting Republicans who will offer endless excuses to keep troops in there, in the hopes they will face a massacre and they can blame Obama for it, the way they did with Clinton in Mogadishu. Yes, the Republicans will quite willingly sabotage the country’s military to gain political ground. The trouble with politicians who wave the flag a lot is that they are hardly ever patriots.

Even as Putsch was digging America in deeper in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and hardening the confrontation that looms with Russia, retired General William Owens was addressing Congress – the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – on the need for a quick and resolute withdrawal from Iraq. I hope Obama reads it, and takes it to heart.

Rather than paraphrase the General, I’ll just quote from his summation. It’s brief, clear, concise, and needs no interpretation from me:

“A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely. I have refuted them repeatedly before but they have more lives than a cat. Let me try again to explain why they don't make sense.

“First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.

“Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the ‘domino theory’ in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it. The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.

“Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran's regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies' interest.

“I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq.”

If Obama wants to avoid something far worse than Mogadishu, then he needs to start by paying close attention to what General Owen is saying, and not wind up as the fall guy in a bloody and violent remake of “The Mouse that Roared”.