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Circumcised
War
July 27, 2002
By Mike McArdle
Hamid Karzai, the oil company flunky who we placed in charge
of Afghanistan is now being guarded by American troops since
the Afghan Vice President was assassinated last month while
his bodyguards stood by and watched. Karzai apparently has
tribal warlords and the head of the much-feared secret service,
Qasim Fahim, out to get him, not to mention a stray evildoer
here and there. So when our guys aren't mistakenly bombing
Afghan nuptials they're looking after the rather fragile welfare
of Mr. Karzai, an absurd figurehead who has no power either
outside of Kabul or out from behind the skirts of the remaining
peacekeepers.
I suppose you can make the case that the American peacekeepers
are at least engaged in something vaguely resembling a military
action even if it is defending the physical safety of the
pathetic puppet Karzai from an assortment of groups who wish
to kill him because he is, well, a pathetic puppet. The troops
of our Turkish allies lent their support to the grand effort
to eradicate terror last week by arranging a mass circumcision
for young Afghan boys in Kabul. The "war on terror" that began
with such clarity of purpose appears to have had a similar
procedure performed upon it.
So why are we still doing this? Is it because we know that
if we face the inevitable and leave the Afghans to the chaos
that seems to be their natural state of affairs, Al Qaida
will move back in and reoccupy parts of the country? Well,
yes, they probably will. But how different would that be from
having them camped out in the friendly confines of neighboring
Pakistan, ruled by another one of our loyal anti-terror allies,
Pervez Musharraf , who doesn't control all of his country
either. So if we left Afghanistan tomorrow the level of terror
in the world would be completely unchanged.
But we'll stay because to do otherwise would be to admit
that the "war on terror" has been a complete dismal failure.
We didn't capture or kill the people responsible for the 9/11
attacks. We appear to have at most caused them to change addresses
in a hurry. The terror networks are still around and the threats
to Americans are as great as ever if you believe the endless
terror alerts and the wild scurrying to reshuffle the agencies
of the government to make them look more terror-unfriendly.
The international good will and support that followed in
the wake of 9/11 has totally disappeared. There is next to
no international support for the next scheduled episode in
this grand drama, an invasion of a country, Iraq, that apparently
had nothing to do with 9/11 and is, at most, a minor leaguer
in the hierarchy of terror-sponsoring nations. The penis-cropping
Turks have offered passive support in exchange for $5 billion
in debt forgiveness, the British government has issued a kind
of "well, maybe" and just about everybody else is fiercely
opposed.
So why Iraq? For the same reason we're still in Afghanistan.
Because we can't admit the war is a failure. And after all,
the military knows how to fight Iraq—they ' ve done it
before. They know that the Iraqi army, when pressed, will
start to surrender to the reporters covering the war. It doesn't
matter that Iraq is small potatoes in the terrorism scheme
just as it didn't matter that the last Gulf War wasn't about
Saddam Hussein at all. Once the oil was secure Hussein wasn't
important so they just left him where he was and he has been
contained and represented nothing but a minor problem for
the past decade. The Bushies don't know how to fight the Al
Qaidas of the world. They're tough and elusive and when you
stamp out a few of them they just find new place to hide or
others pop up to take their place.
So we're going to invade a country that had nothing to do
with 9/11 and we're going to get some of our people killed
and we'll probably kill a whole lot their people simply because
our leadership can't think of anything more constructive to
do and because we failed at the war we were supposed to be
fighting and it has to at least look like we're fighting terrorism
because we said we were going to.
But, unfortunately, nobody, anywhere wants to talk about
this. The administration and the Republicans want to say that
America is winning and that Bush's inane speeches and ridiculous
posturing are inspiring the world against terror when a glance
at any foreign newspaper shows that he inspires only laughter
and derision. The Democrats want to say they're supportive
so they've looked the other way rather than point out that
there's nothing there to support. A couple of prominent Senators
have promised hearings on Iraq, but you're kidding yourself
if you think they'll be uttering any discouraging words. The
Democrats aren't about to have their patriotism questioned
so they'll will wave the flag and go along with this travesty.
The war to cover-up the failure of the war. Makes me proud
to be an American.
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