The Americans
Should Get Out Now While They Can
By
Anwaar Hussain
THERE
IS NO stopping a man who believes he is right and is willing to
die for that belief. Like the critical mass theory, if this belief
is shared by sufficient number of men then no amount of firepower
brought to bear on such men by ultra-modern weapons is enough
to snuff out their spirit. This is the gravest miscalculation
made by the head honchos ruling the roost in the great United
States of America. Like fools they have rushed in where angels
fear to tread.
Even if the Americans were unwilling to listen to voices of sanity
across the world asking for caution and prudence, for their own
interest they should have fed bits of historic facts into their
super computers and asked for an answer.
First Afghanistan. Afghan Pathans make up nearly half the population
of Afghanistan, are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan
and the chief targets for the American-led coalition forces in
Afghanistan. To be sure, the Pathans have been subdued for brief
spans of history but have invariably bounced back on their enemies
with renewed vigor and venom.
They wear their weapons as clothing accessories, and are renowned
as equally for their fierce blood feuds and hatred of enemies
as for their loyalty to friends. In their blood feuds only, their
patience is known to be as great as their mighty Hindukush. Proud
warriors and one of the most resistant tribal peoples on earth,
the Pathans have withstood the military might of Alexander the
Great, Mogul Emperors, the Soviets and the British in the past.
“He is no Pathan who does not give a blow for a punch,”
maintains one of their proverbs. The
Americans should have known.
Pathan
society revolves around a strict code of ethics, known as Pukhtunwali
(“the way of the Pathan”). This unwritten code includes
hospitality and protection of one’s guests; extending refuge
to a fugitive; the right of blood feuds or revenge; bravery, single-mindedness,
justice, and persistence; defense of one’s property and
honor; and defense of one’s women. Above all, the ability
to defend his property and household is vital to a Pathan’s
honor. And according to their culture, death is not too high a
price to pay for one’s honor. Before occupying the Afghan’s
land, the Americans should have known.
Though their loyalty to Islam is fierce, but Pathan culture often
seems to supercede Islamic orthodoxy. The rise and fall of Taliban
is but one brief twist of history in this rugged part of the world.
Taliban or no Taliban, resisting foreign occupation of their lands
is a way of life for them. After the exit of the Soviets from
Afghanistan, the Taliban phenomenon could hold their interest
for only as long. If there were no foreign occupiers soon enough,
the Pathans would have had to invent some to go on with their
way of life. Their tussle with the Northern Alliance was nothing
but a poor substitute manifestation of this fact. The Americans
should have known.
The Americans should have known too what was known to Europeans
since the days of Alexander. Afghanistan is a land of mountains,
ferocious warriors, uncompromising Islam, vicious tribal rivalries
and a political complexity that entwines bloodlines, chivalry,
religion and history into a mix as unfathomable to the outsider
today as it has ever been. In the early 19th century it was a
land of great mystery, at the dawn of twenty-first it remains
only more so. It should have been left alone to find its own natural
equilibrium.
Iraqi nationalism is no different. In Iraq today there is a very
strong element of national pride of the Iraqi people, who do not
want to be victims of what amounts to a brazen colonial domination
by the US led forces. No significant faction in Iraq wants to
be dominated by a foreign imperialist power. In the historical
memory of the Iraqis, like that of the Afghan people, Britain
and America feature not as kind, friendly, democratic patrons,
but as bloodthirsty tormenters and exploiters.
To their horror, in Iraq too the Americans have discovered that
their enemies want to fight them. Gone are the days of raining
fat bombs on a helpless bunch of human beings strung out in the
coverless Iraqi desert. No more bunker-busters and Daisy Cutters.
There are no targets for such weapons. Like mirages, the Iraqis
now disappear and reappear at will from the same deserts and collect
American scalps like so many war trophies. Ironically the so called
“War on Terror” has turned out to be “War of
Terror” for the Americans. That deceit and subterfuge has
a limit, the Americans should have known.
They should have known too that the wages of war were high for
all and not just for the victims. All wars have unintended consequences….more
so when political leaders, having personal axes to grind, set
in motion events that end up wounding the pride of an already
aggrieved nation. Someone should have told the Americans that
morally wrong aggressive military actions surely earn a violent
reaction.
They should have known that the so called "war on terrorism,"
will stir anti-American sentiments in a vicious way. Indiscriminate
bombings, death of innocent bystanders and unjustifiable tactics
in Iraq and Afghanistan will inflame the tinderbox of even ordinary
Muslim’s sentiments. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan in quick
succession, and now threatening Iran and Syria in no ambiguous
terms, only confirm their worst suspicions. That is, that Washington
is intent upon destroying not just terrorists, but a way of life
in Muslim societies. The number of Muslims having such beliefs
is increasing at an alarming rate across the Muslim world. If
not done already, this number may be about to cross that critical
mass. Americans need to know.
Muslim grievances center on the perception that America exerts
its power without a thought for the value of Muslim lives, whether
for Palestinians in their desperate refugee camps, Iraqis gunned
down in the "turkey shoot" of Desert Storm, or innocent
Afghans sniped off the plains of Afghanistan. The clumsy American
actions have almost ensured that Bin Laden becomes a legend to
tens of millions of victimized Muslims and a model for further
action against the West.
The results of endless attempt to impose America's will by force
upon a resentful and hostile people are becoming clearer by the
day. It is naïve if the Americans have still not grasped
the facts on the ground. It is high time to sit up and take note
of the diversity of the opposition forces and the depth of their
popular support.
Both the Iraqi and Afghan resistance is waging the type of campaign
that has been waged historically by people battling against foreign
occupation. Unable to match the overwhelming superiority of US
firepower, the resistance fighters rely on one vital strategic
advantage: it is their country. Their aim is to make it intractable
for the occupiers.
It’s a guerilla war on in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Someone
needs to tell the Americans that rooting guerrilla fighters involves
the use of intense violence and draconian measures against the
population wherefrom it springs. In the ensuing chaos it is hard
to distinguish between friend and foe. Mass sweeps and arrests,
the use of spies and informers, torturing of suspects to extract
information and hair-trigger responses to non-threats invariably
leading to loss of innocent lives results in more hatred for the
occupation forces. This generates, in turn, an increase in support
for the guerrillas, further resistance by the civilian population,
intensified tyrannical measures, and a spiral of violence that
always spins out of control.
The Americans need to realize before it is too late that the logic
of occupation is naturally despotic. That the brutalized and impoverished
people of Iraq and Afghanistan need facilitators to help them
decide their own fate, not occupiers. It is another matter that
the Americans and their side-kicks are not even left with enough
credibility needed to act as facilitators.
The Americans must know that the world, having finally taken off
the blinds of 9/11, has now seen through their plot. The world
now knows that far from benefiting the Iraqi and Afghan peoples
this whole operation is an unashamed imperialist robbery of their
resources. The Americans call for denouncing as “terrorists”
those who fail to greet the US invaders as “liberators”
is now increasingly being met with derision. People still remember
Vietnam, Algeria, southern Africa, Kashmir, Chechnya and every
other part of the globe where oppressed peoples fought, and are
fighting, to throw off the bondage of colonialism and foreign
occupation. The Nazis too routinely condemned anyone who resisted
German occupation in the Second World War as “terrorists”
What is the difference?
The Muslim world has a long history of opposing colonial rule
that will not be erased by empty rhetoric about democracy and
liberation. There is still time for the Americans to go back to
their country and put their own house in order first. Otherwise
not too far in future, like in Vietnam, they would cross the point
of no return. Then they would be giving the world their standard
argument that “…we could not possibly leave that part
of the world after investing so much of our blood, treasure, and
reputation there.” That would inexorably draw American-led
forces to the eye of the storm. If America is discredited now,
it would be dishonored then. An orderly withdrawal is the only
sane policy and the only politically and morally justifiable way
to extricate from the deepening quagmire.
It is patently dishonest of the British not to have informed their
American cousins of what one of their great countrymen, Rudyard
Kipling, had to say about Afghans.
"When you're wounded and left,
On Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out,
To cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle,
And blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd,
Like a soldier."
Wish Rudyard Kipling had visited Iraq too.
The
writer is an ex-officer of the Pakistan Air Force now living in
UAE
