So, where ever we have interfered, in the world, during last decade or so, especially after 9/11, the situation has gone from worse to worst. Well over four thousand U.S. citizens have been killed so far. The estimates of civilian lives lost in these wars range from 200,000 to 2,000,000, depending upon your source. Typically sources tied to U.S. are on the lower side, and the neutral and opposite side are on higher side. Over three trillion dollars are spent, so far, on post 9/11 wars and enhanced security related measures. If you add up all the expenses in past, ongoing expenses and future war related expenses, then, just the cost of Iraq war is over a trillion dollars.
I don’t care, what government and its agencies are telling us. Have a careful look at the cost in terms of human lives, money, loss of property, economic and financial impact on our economy, economy of other involved countries, world as a whole, and you will conclude that we are losing the, so called, war on terror, so far. As harsh it may sound, unfortunately, it is true. Most wars, especially in the contemporary world, are not won or lost in battle field. They are won or lost outside the battle ground.
Take the example of Soviet Union. It occupied Kabul and most of the big cities during its war in Afghanistan. It had almost complete control on national government. Rebels had no capability, what so ever, to fight Soviet forces, face to face in an open battle field. But, the guerilla warfare tactics that rebels adopted, in extremely harsh Afghan terrain and world’s tallest mountains, with help of money, training and arms provided by CIA and Pakistani intelligence, ISI, turned out to be fatal for Soviet Union. The economic and financial damage caused by the war totally bankrupted an already bad Soviet economy. Finally, they had to leave, and Soviet Union fell apart.
Same could be true about George Washington, the inventor of modern guerilla warfare. His nation was divided on revolt against British occupiers. But, the majority wanted the foreign government and forces out. Britain was a super power and major colonist at that time. There resources and fire power was unlimited, compared to freedom fighters of George Washington. Freedom fighters had no chance against their powerful enemy in an open face to face battle. So, George Washington, a great general, devised and executed the guerilla warfare strategy, as a major component of his overall plan.
So, if you believe that Al-Qaeda and other anti-American extremists are looking forward to beat us in an open face to face battle, you are living in a loo loo la la land. Then, what is their strategy? Of course, their strategy is same as it has always been in any guerilla warfare. The strategy George Washington had against British. The strategy we and they had against Soviet Union in Afghanistan war. It is to cause such a high and broad based damage to economy, finance, moral and lives that brings us down to our knees, and it becomes impossible for us to sustain any of it. Do you disagree that this has not been going on so far?
In addition to this, be sure that the extremists are not the only enemies we have, just like that they were not the only enemies of Soviet Union. There were us, Pakistan, and our other allies. So, in current context of our global war against terror, these extremists are not the only enemies, we have. There are many other countries, who are not happy with us and who do not like us. They, too, are waiting on our break down due to our own stupidities.
If you look at the recent history of resistance against occupiers and authoritarian regimes, you find out that resistance wins in most cases. This is not accidental. It has obvious and logical reasons backing it up. Although, it is true that the contemporary governments have access to unprecedented resources like money, technology, organized military and law enforcement, weapons and government controlled media, the modern technology, weapons and tactics has made the resistance groups, far more evasive. They have much better communication which results in stronger organization, even at global level. Modern weapons make ambush very easy and lethal.
It is also a natural tendency in human beings to trust and prefer their own, compared to others, no matter what. So, how good our intentions may be, we are foreigners in those countries. Literally, we are like intruders in their homes. Most of the citizens in those countries want us out. They do not want a foreign power imposing the solutions on them. We try to change that perception by placing a government formed by citizens of that country. Regardless of being good or bad, those governments are widely perceived as foreign agents. People have no respect for those governments.
In few of these countries like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt, we were successful to make them have democratic elections. Problem is that these countries never had democracy, before. They are still at the initial stage of democratization process. Remember the wars and blood shed Europe had in transition from monarchies to democracies, French revolution and industrial revolution. How hard we had to fight against British monarchy? How bad the post revolution governments were in Europe. So, people elect, in these countries of our interest, governments that are very corrupt, inefficient, incompetent and do not serve our interests.
As a result of decades and even centuries of monarchies and dictatorships, these countries have rampant corruption. There are privileged classes and there are masses. So, the governments that come into power after our intervention, are in almost every case, even worse than the previous dictator or monarchy. They could not bring the change, people hoped for, fought for and sacrificed for. In cases like Egypt, for example, even if the people were happy with government, then, we were not. Contrary to the expectations of idiotic foreign relations gurus in our government, the new government in Egypt was not serving our interests. So, we toppled it. Now, we either get the blame for incompetent government or for turning over the popular government, as the case may be.
Violence Shop
